FedEx Corp., operator of the world’s largest cargo airline, cut its annual profit outlook as a weakening economy spurs shippers in the U.S. and overseas to switch to cheaper delivery options.

FedEx, an economic bellwether because it ships goods from financial documents to electronics, pared its forecast for U.S. expansion next year to 1.9 percent from a June prediction of 2.4 percent. It trimmed its forecast for global growth this year and next to 2.3 percent and 2.7 percent, down from 2.4 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

“Fundamentally what’s happening is that exports around the world have contracted and the policy choices in Europe, the U.S. and China are having an effect on global trade,” Chief Executive Officer Fred Smith said on a conference call. “Over the last few months, exports and trade have gone down at a faster rate than GDP has.”

This Bloomberg story was reprinted in the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday...and I lifted it from yesterday's edition of the King Report. The link is here.

American Airlines is sending layoff warning notices to more than 11,000 employees although a spokesman says the company expects job losses to be closer to 4,400.

The notices went out to mechanics and ground workers whose jobs will be affected as American goes through a bankruptcy restructuring.

American Airlines spokesman Bruce Hicks said Tuesday that fewer than 40 percent of those getting notices will lose their jobs. Hicks said federal law requires the company to notify anyone whose position could change, including those who could get "bumped" by more-senior employees whose jobs are eliminated or outsourced.

American said in February that it planned to cut 14,000 jobs, including 13,000 held by union workers. But if Hicks is right, the final job losses will be about a third of that.

This AP story showed up on the website of The Wall Street Journal early on Tuesday evening...and I thank Scott Pluschau for sending it our way. The link is here.

A single large sell order in the benchmark European Brent oil market, followed by an abrupt U-turn among high-frequency traders, may have caused one of the most abrupt price routs ever, brokers and analysts said on Tuesday.

As the dust settled on Monday's four-minute, nearly $4 plunge, other possible causes such as an erroneous "fat finger" trade, a computer program run amok or a broad, rumor-driven sell-off were set aside in favor of a combination of one big trade - potentially as much as 12 million barrels worth some $1.4 billion - and tens of thousands of computerized orders.

"There was most likely a large fundamental seller in the market yesterday," said Eric Scott Hunsader, Chief Executive of Nanex, a trading consultancy that regularly conducts detailed forensic analysis of erratic market activity.

But assuming a single seller got the ball rolling lower, it was algorithmic traders that almost certainly extended and intensified the decline, causing a 20-fold spike in volume as risk limits or automated price triggers fueled selling.

Silver analyst Ted Butler had this to say about it in his mid-week commentary yesterday..."This week Commissioner O'Malia promised that the Commission was looking into the 4% price decline in oil. A decline in oil of 4% gets same-day comment...35% down in silver is not worthy of any comment." West Virginia reader Elliot Simont sent me this must read Reuters piece yesterday...and the link is here.

Saudi Arabia has signalled it is prepared to step up oil production to prevent the price of crude hurting the fragile global economy.

An official told reporters in Dubai that Saudi is pumping about 10m barrels of oil a day, slightly up from last month, and will do more if customers want it.

Although the price of crude has fallen so far this year, prices have spiked almost 20pc in the past three months amid escalating fears of a showdown over Iran's nuclear programme.

Saudi's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said last week that current prices are not justified by the mix of supply and demand.

This story appeared on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site late on Tuesday evening...and I thank Donald Sinclair for finding it for us. The link is here.

The debt-laden nation is selling its 10,000 square foot consular residence in London's Holland Park. Estate agent Marsh & Parsons recently sold a 4,000 sq ft house in nearby Clarendon Rd for £12m, and homes similar to the 115-year-old townhouse currently attract rents of around £25,000 per week

Also up for sale is the partially-ruined Palace of Tatoi, 16 miles from Athens, which was home to the royal family prior to them being forced to flee the country in 1967. The property comes as part of an estate that includes 40 outbuildings, stables and the graves of several members of the royal family dating back to 1880.

Other lots will include an office building in Brussels, property in Belgrade, a home in Llubljana and land in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Last year Greece agreed to raise €50bn before 2020 by auctioning off assets including the state gas utility DEPA and gas distributor DESFA as part of conditions attached to its €240bn bail-out rescue. The country has even identified 40 uninhabited islands which it plans to lease out for as long as 50 years.

This story was posted on The Telegraph's website early yesterday evening...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along. The link is here.

The French government said on Wednesday it would close French embassies and schools in some 20 countries on Friday, a holy day in the Muslim world, for fear of reprisals after satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

"Is it relevant and intelligent in this environment to add fuel to the fire? The answer is no," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France Info radio. "I'm very worried ... and when I saw this I immediately issued instructions for special security precautions to be taken in all the countries where it could be a problem."

Issues of the magazine hit newsstands on Wednesday with the front cover showing an Orthodox Jew pushing a figure in a wheelchair wearing a turban. There were several caricatures of the Prophet on the inside pages, including some of him naked.

This story was posted on the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens once again. The link is here.

More money printing is likely within months despite signs that inflation is proving stickier than expected, economists said, after minutes from the Bank of England’s rate-setting meeting revealed that policymakers are poised to vote for further quantitative easing.

According to the minutes, “some ... members felt that additional stimulus was more likely than not to be needed in due course”. One committee member, believed to be David Miles, almost voted for more QE at the meeting, the minutes added. In the end the decision to leave rates on hold at 0.5pc and QE unchanged at £375bn was unanimous.

Economists expressed surprise that the support for more stimulus had been so strong, given that the minutes also carried a warning that inflation will fall more slowly than the Bank predicted in its quarterly forecast last month.

“The rise in oil prices and the probable increase in utility and some food prices meant that the near-term outlook was for a less rapid fall in inflation than the Committee had thought [in] August,” the minutes said. As a result, it warned “that the squeeze on real household incomes would not ease further in the short term”.

No surprises here, as it's "Print, or Die" time everywhere on Planet Earth. This story was posted on The Telegraph's website very late yesterday afternoon BST...and I thank Roy Stephens for his first offering in today's column. The link is here.

Forget QE3 in the US, or whatever round of quantitative easing we are now up to here in the UK; in Japan they are about to embark on QE7, or is that QE8 – it’s hard to keep up.

In the land of the setting sun, QE is now such an everyday part of the economic landscape that it would barely have warranted a mention, let alone an entire column, but for the fact that the latest dollop of “unconventional” policy action appears to be part of a co-ordinated, global response to the economic slowdown .

Like big deficits and mountainous public debt, in Japan, QE no longer generates the same agonised debate it does in the West. It just is. For Japan, the “unconventional” is now very much the conventional.

Well, now everyone’s up to it. Against the backdrop of weaker growth, central banks in advanced economies and emerging markets alike are all taking further steps to ease monetary policy. Never mind the G7 economies, since the start of the year the central banks of Brazil, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Israel, Korea, the Philippines and South Africa have all lowered their policy rates. Japan is just part of a global phenomenon.

What also makes the Bank of Japan’s policy action of perhaps wider interest is that it occurs against the backdrop of renewed tension in the East China seas. The Chinese slowdown is proving a big enough headache for the Japanese economy but possible retaliatory action over the disputed Senkaku islands threatens much worse.

This is another offering from Roy Stephens...and it, too, was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site late yesterday evening...and it's worth reading. The link is here.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard had something to say about this above subject in a short blog he posted on The Telegraph's Internet site last evening as well. It's headlined "Japan launches QE8 as 20-year slump drags on". Ulrike Marx sent it...and the link is here.

The Senkaku/Diaoyu clash in the East China Sea is the paramount political and strategic story in the world today, although you would not know that from the scant and almost jocular coverage in the British and European press.

It is eerily familiar to anybody who has studied the escalating spat between Wilhelmine Germany and the Franco-British Entente in the lead-up to the First World War. The rise of a new global power is always fraught with risk, and usually mishandled by both sides.

If you think this is a storm in a teacup – the urbane reflex – listen more carefully to US defence secretary Leon Panetta, who warned that China and Japan risk provoking each other into war, drawing in other countries. He meant the US, of course.

This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard blog from yesterday is another must read...and I thank Roy Stephens once again. The link is here.

Shortly after the conclusion of the Casey Research/Sprott, Inc. Navigating the Politicized Economy investor summit, Louis James sat down with Doug Casey to assess the conference and provide insights on how investors can win in today's distorted marketplace.

This 15-minute video interview is certainly worth your time. It's contained in yesterday's edition of Conversations With Casey...and the link is here.

The first is with Jean Marie-Eveillard. It's headlined "Why Gold Is Heading Higher & Governments Can't Stop It". The next blog is with John Embry...and it's entitled "We're Witnessing an Historic & Frightening End Game". And lastly is this blog with John Gray from Investors Intelligence. It's headlined "Here is the Key to the Global Markets Right Now".

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has rushed out of the Cosatu congress to intervene in a wildcat strike at a Carletonville gold mine to try and prevent “another Marikana”.

On Wednesday afternoon, Vavi announced that he would leave with National Union of Mineworkers president Senzeni Zokwana to go to Gold Fields' Driefontein mine near Carletonville where management has obtained an interdict to fire 15 000 workers by tomorrow.

The workers have been on a wildcat strike for 10 days now for, among others, better wages.

Vavi told reporters: "We can't allow another Marikana situation to move from Impala [platinum] to gold. And that is why we feel we must take our chance to see if we can resolve this situation today."

This story was filed from Johannesburg yesterday afternoon local time...and was posted on the news24.com Internet site. I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

In this age of debate about the value, or non-value, of the dollar, we've encountered a little something from the past that you probably don't see every day unless you're a currency collector -- a 1935 series U.S. dollar silver certificate.

Peter Gorenstein, executive producer for The Daily Ticker and Breakout, found one in his change. If you've not come across one of these in person before, you might at first think it's counterfeit, but it is real, and you can certainly buy things with it.

The promise on the old bill below George Washington's portrait that the certificate is equivalent to "One Dollar In Silver Payable To The Bearer On Demand." We know that some of our readers love the idea of investing in hard assets and of hard assets backing the U.S. currency. But despite what this dollar says, you can't get silver for it from the government. Your ability to redeem the certificates for silver with the U.S. Treasury came to an end in 1968.

This short, but very interesting story, was posted on the finance.yahoo.com Internet site yesterday...and I thank Scott Pluschau for finding it for us. It's worth reading...and the link is here.

It was 2009, and silver prices were booming. After dropping to a multi-year low, prices soon skyrocketed as investors sought safety in a tumultuous economy. Yet most investors could only indirectly participate in the metal’s run, relegated to purchase securities of silver miners or exchange-traded funds tracking the price of silver. Then, in what sounded too good to be true, a South Carolina company offered investors the opportunity to cash in on the boom by purchasing actual silver bars that would then be kept in storage at a Delaware Depository. The company, Atlantic Bullion and Coin, Inc. and its owner, Ronnie Wilson, proceeded to take in approximately $65 million during the three-year period from January 2009 to February 2012, including $33 million alone from January 2011 to February 2012. Based on prevailing silver prices, this should have translated into the purchase of thousands of 100-ounce and 1000-ounce silver bars held in storage for investors.

However, as authorities would discover in early 2012, the operation was nothing more than a giant Ponzi scheme, with Wilson purchasing “woefully insufficient” quantities of silver and using investor funds to make Ponzi-style payments to create the appearance that the scheme was wildly successful. When Beattie Ashmore, the court-appointed receiver, took over operations in June 2012, he discovered that only eighty-five 1000-ounce silver bars had been purchased since 2009, and of that minimal quantity, only sixty-four bars remained. Additionally, contrary to Wilson’s representations, there was no evidence that he or AB&C had taken possession of any significant quantity of silver bars or that the bars were held in storage for specific clients. Instead, tens of millions of dollars were used for Wilson’s and his family’s personal and/or business interests.

This is old news, but it's interesting to see how it turned out when all was said and done. This Forbes story from Monday was sent to me by Nick Laird in the wee hours of this morning...and it's worth the read. The link is here. Do you know where your silver is, dear reader?

Concerned over rising gold imports, the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday said it is planning to come out with financial products on the lines of gold ETFs to give options to investors to take advantage of price movement in the precious metal. "...We can provide people with financial attraction of gold without them having physically own it. That would in a sense reduce the pressure on imports. So ETFs are one such," RBI Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn told reporters on the sidelines of a PHD Chamber event in New Delhi.

Did he really say that? Ulrike Marx sent me this story...and as she said in her covering e-mail..."I mean, they're practically TELLING you that this is a scam!" And that, dear reader, is precisely what it is. I certainly hope that the good folks in India can see past this but, sadly, some of them won't.

This story was posted on the businessworld.in Internet site early on their Thursday morning. It's a must read...and the link is here.

On the 24th of April 2009, China announced that it had increased its gold reserves 75% from 600 tonnes to 1,054 tonnes. What made the announcement unusual was the six year gap in reporting, given the previous two changes were in December 2002 (99.2 tonnes added) and December 2001 (105.7 tonnes added).

In addition, the World Gold Council’s (WGC) quarterly gold reserves reports notes that the purchase of the 454 tonnes took place over the January 2003 to April 2009 period, so it wasn’t a one-off purchase. It is clear China moved from a regular reporting schedule to a more strategic approach.

It has now been 3½ years without any indication from China as to the size of their gold reserves. With imports of gold into China, and gold production within China, having increased significantly over the past few years it raises the question of how much gold has China been accumulating since 2009?

To answer that question, in this Perth Mint Treasury paper we will look at China’s gold mining and importing activities and estimate how much of that is held by the government versus privately.

Bron is the Analysis and Strategy Manager at The Perth Mint. He slid this into my in-box just before I hit the 'send' button on Wednesday's column...and I had no opportunity to go through it at the time, so it had to wait until today. It's a must read for sure...and the link to this 5-page report is here. It also contains a couple of new charts from Nick Laird.