New Credit Card Security Idea from France

Two banks in France are rolling out new credit cards that change the 3 digit code on the back of the card every hour, for up to 3 years. When will this feature appear in the US? Hard to tell since banks and retailers here have lagged behind Europe and the rest of the world trying to get "Chip and PIN" technology in widespread use across the country. Major retailers like Walmart have it already, but many small businesses are still struggling to absorb the cost of installing new card readers that will accept Chip and PIN credit and debit cards. 

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Instrumentation

Without hard data, it's just an opinion

Gender Wars

Wipe it Clean!

McIntosh MC275 Warming Up

The engineers at McIntosh have added LEDs under the front row of 12AU7 and 12AX7 tubes to indicate when the amp is warmed up. Not really necessary but still cool looking.

Deutsche Bank is Crashing

This isn't about Shampoo

If you're into stock market technicals, this is a classic 'Head and Shoulder' pattern. The chart is for Deutsche Bank which has a derivative exposure 20 times the GDP of Germany. 

Right now, Deutsche Bank stock is at historic lows and has lost 20% of its market cap in less than 2 weeks. The latest blow to the stock price is due to Merkel recently announcing there would be no bailout for DB. If Deutsche Bank does go down, it could trigger a domino effect that would negatively impact all central banks worldwide. Their derivative exposure is much worse than Lehman Brothers before its collapse in 2008 that triggered the last economic crisis. DB has also been fined billions of dollars since April 2016 for price rigging and other illegal activities.  Many analysts doubt that Deutsche Bank can unwind their derivative book on any time frame. Doesn't look good for DB and things may get worse in the coming days.

As bad as the above chart is, at least it isn't the dreaded "Vampire Duck" pattern.  :-0