Festivities for the 25th anniversary of “Die Wallfall”, the fall of the Berlin Wall between the old Communist East Germany and the rest of the world were rather subdued because the now free German railroad workers went on strike. Strikes were illegal in the old German “Workers' Paradise”.

The gold price drop is more a temporary result of the stratospheric rise of the dollar against other currencies rather than a lack of appeal from the yellow metal. But as I warned last week, I have no idea when this will reverse.

On a day when 76 million USERS were revealed to have had their accounts hacked at JP Morgan Chase. Another 7 million businesses were hacked, among them apparently myself. Plus more stock news from Canada, Bermuda, China, Dubai, Switzerland, Jordan, Portugal, Brazil

Waiting for Scotland and waiting for Alibaba is something like waiting for Godot. Plus stock news from Switzerland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, China, India, Ireland, Israel, and Jordan. Today's theme is internationalization.

This July, the US imported 12% less oil (crude and products) than it had in July, 2013, 9.06 million barrels per day (mbpd). In fact, the imports were the lowest in any July since 1995, according to data from the American Petroleum Institute, an industry body.

These are cheap prices for gold bars, but remember you will have to pay insurance after taking delivery; leaving the gold with Bullion Vault (BV) means cheap insurance.