Gold World News Flash |
- GoldSeek.com Radio: Charles Goyette, Bob Hoye, and your host Chris Waltzek
- Gold And Silver – For Strong Upward Movement, Experts Continue To Be Wrong.
- Ted Butler: Suing JPMorgan and the Comex
- Palladium Shines
- John Browne: Gold's fundamentals may be starting to overcome market manipulation
- Zero Hedge: How China imported all that gold without exploding the price
- Why Some People Will Never Wake Up
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – The Hunger Games
- Should You Add Gold and Silver Coins to Your Portfolio?
- Gold Reserves Top 20 Countries
- Markets Politicized - Perspective on Russia
- How China Imported A Record $70 Billion In Physical Gold Without Sending The Price Of Gold Soaring
- How (& Why) JPMorgan & COMEXShould Be Sued For Precious Metals Manipulation
- Clamor for devaluation to boost industry in Britain
- Top 10 nations stockpiling gold
- Economic Collapse 2014 -- Current Economic Collapse News Brief
- Maguire tells KWN about coordinated disinformation about gold
- Guest Post: Oil Limits And The Economy - One Story; Not Two
- Experts Still Wrong About Strong Upside Movement In Gold And Silver
- Puerto Rico Bonds Tumble On Possible Hedge Fund Pump-And-Dump Probe
- Charles Goyette -- Global Economic Balance Shifting East
- In The News Today
- Maguire - Goldman & Media Full Of Sh*t When It Comes To Gold
- Juniors for Seniors
- Juniors for Seniors
- The Euro Is Not Overvalued Nor Is Any Other Currency
- Gold and Silver Hunger Games
- Gold And Silver - For Strong Upside Movement Experts Continue To Be Wrong
- Suing JPMorgan and the COMEX
- Gold and Silver Stocks Failed Breakout Marks Interim Top
- Ted Butler: Suing JPMorgan and Comex for rigging the gold, silver, and copper markets
- Gold Investors Weekly Review – March 21st
- The Gold Price Closed Higher $5.50 at $1,336
- As The Dollar Collapses The Next False Flag Falls Into Place
- The Gold Price Closed Higher $5.50 at $1,336
- Gold could be Russia's big weapon in financial war
- Maguire, von Greyerz, Cashin comment at King World News
- Jim’s Mailbox
- China gold demand up 29% so far this year, Koos Jansen reports
- 'Gold Cartel' author Dimitri Speck interviewed by Kitco News
- Economic Collapse 2014 -- Fed Prints TRILLIONS to Fight CURRENCY WAR
- Ted Butler: Suing JPMorgan and the COMEX
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Hunger Games
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Hunger Games
- Gold Seeker Weekly Wrap-Up: Gold and Silver Fall Over 3% and 5% on the Week
- Jim Rickards & Mike Maloney: Gold Revaluation & THE DEATH OF MONEY
- COT Gold, Silver and US Dollar Index Report - March 21, 2014
- Going Tit For Tat With Russia
| GoldSeek.com Radio: Charles Goyette, Bob Hoye, and your host Chris Waltzek Posted: 23 Mar 2014 09:00 PM PDT With a degree in geophysics and a number of fascinating summers in mining exploration, one winter in "the bush" quickly led Bob into the financial markets. This included experience on the trading desk and in the research department of a large investment dealer, which led to institutional stock and bond sales... Charles Goyette is an American talk show host and writer. He is a libertarian commentator, who is noted for his outspoken anti-war views, his opposition to the war in Iraq, and his economic commentary. He is the author of the book The Dollar Meltdown: Surviving the Impending Currency Crisis with Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments, which Congressman Ron Paul calls "a must read," and investor Peter Schiff describes as "...a sensible plan to protect your wealth." |
| Gold And Silver – For Strong Upward Movement, Experts Continue To Be Wrong. Posted: 23 Mar 2014 08:00 AM PDT From our perspective, the charts reflect the reality of the unreal within the ruling Western elites that continue their financial stranglehold over every Western government, at a minimum, and through their central banks dictating how governments are to rule the governed, aka those enslaved into the system. [We will deal with how charts are the best read, later in the commentary.] |
| Ted Butler: Suing JPMorgan and the Comex Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:00 AM PDT by Ed Steer, Casey Research:
JPMorgan et al managed to put the fire out by shortly after 11 a.m. GMT in London—and from there the price traded quietly lower until around 10:30 a.m. EST in New York. After that it didn’t do a lot, although a tiny rally that began around 12:30 p.m. EDT got sold down at 3:30 p.m. before it could get anywhere. The CME Group recorded the high and lows ticks as $1,328.00 and $1,343.00 in the April contract. |
| Posted: 22 Mar 2014 11:05 PM PDT With markets showing they need some time I took last weekend off to go away and get some skiing in so my apologies to the many who've emailed wondering my thoughts on gold and silver this past week. Markets remain choppy here with leading stocks needing time to setup better bases and charts, so cash remains a good position while we wait for the easy money to return. Gold tried to breakout but failed and could be looking for some more downside now. I've said all year and beyond that the slower gold moves up the better. |
| John Browne: Gold's fundamentals may be starting to overcome market manipulation Posted: 22 Mar 2014 10:32 PM PDT Gold May Regain Its Luster By John Browne http://triblive.com/business/brownebusiness/5789685-74/gold-tons-metric#... It was suspected and litigation alleges the gold market is being manipulated by major Western central banks, led by the Federal Reserve. Despite the great power of central banks, however, it appears that gold is starting to rise for fundamental reasons of demand. AIS Capital Management LP filed a class-action, antitrust lawsuit in federal court in New York against five international banks: the Bank of Nova Scotia, Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings and Societe Generale. The suit alleges that these banks conspired to manipulate the price of gold for their own gain and follows announcements of official investigations in the United Kingdom and in Germany regarding the London Gold Fix. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... Like the London Inter Bank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, used to base key international interest rates, the London Gold Fix forms the spot price benchmark for major gold transactions. The LIBOR scandal rocked the financial world. But Germany's senior securities regulatory agency declared gold manipulation as potentially "worse than LIBOR." Gold trading long has been shrouded in mystery. In 2009, China's central bank disclosed that its gold holdings grew by 75 percent from 600 to 1,054 tons, or metric tons. According to Gold Fields Mineral Service, the world's total gold production for 2013 was 2,765 metric tons. Subtracting China's and Russia's "non-exported" domestic production from the 2,765 metric tons left some 2,142 metric tons of newly mined gold available worldwide last year. Adding China's last three years' annual aggregate production of 1,320 metric tons to its declared holdings of 1,054 metric tons indicates China's holdings are at about 2,374 metric tons. This makes China one of the world's largest holders, yet it imports on a large scale. According to the Hong Kong census, China imported a net 1,781 metric tons via Shanghai and Hong Kong. Adding this to China's domestic annual production of 440 tons suggests China accumulated at least 2,221 metric tons last year, or more than 80 percent of total worldwide production of 2,765 metric tons. Combining China's aggregate domestic production and known imports suggests it has more than 4,155 metric tons. Assuming the United States owns all the gold held by the Fed, this makes China the world's second-largest owner. United Nations, International Monetary Fund and Bloomberg statistics show that demand for gold from surplus nations, net changes in central bank holdings and jewelry demand totaled 3,401 metric tons in 2013. Added to China's imports of 1,781, this amounted to total demand of 5,182 metric tons. Gold recycling and net sales from gold exchange traded funds yielded 2,261 metric tons, making a total 4,403 metric tons available worldwide in 2013. That means gold demand of 5,182 metric tons exceeded supply by 779 metric tons. From where did the extra gold come? Did central banks secretly lease gold to buyers? Is China the world's largest "owner," as opposed to "holder," of gold? Clearly, higher gold prices owe something to Ukrainian tensions and depressed interest rates. But growing awareness of shortages and a decline in the power of Western central banks to suppress price point to a resumption of the bull market. ----- John Browne, a former member of Britain's Parliament, is a financial and economics columnist for Trib Total Media. Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Canadian Investor Conference 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata |
| Zero Hedge: How China imported all that gold without exploding the price Posted: 22 Mar 2014 10:16 PM PDT 1:20p HKT Sunday, March 23, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Zero Hedge has just outlined the scenario by which China and its many not terribly scrupulous entrepreneurs may obtained huge volumes of gold while selling gold futures to prevent the price from taking off over the last year. The mechanism for the undertaking, Zero Hedge writes, was commodity funding deals in which any particular lump of a commodity may have been essentially mortgaged a few times simultaneously -- sort of like the Western central bank gold leasing system in which any particular ounce of the metal may be subject to multiple ownership or possessor claims. Zero Hedge writes: "... [o]f all speculated entities who may have been selling paper gold (since one can and does create naked short positions out of thin air), it was likely none other than China that was most responsible for the tumble in price in gold in 2013 -- a year in which China and its billionaire citizens also bought a record amount of physical gold (much of its for personal use, of course -- just check out those overflowing private gold vaults in Shanghai)." Zero Hedge's thrilling conclusion: "When we previously contemplated what the end of funding deals (which the People's Bank of China and the China Politburo seem rather set on) may mean for the price of other commodities, we agreed with Goldman that it would be certainly negative. And yet in the case of gold, it just may be that even if China were to dump its physical to some willing third-party buyer, its inevitable cover of futures 'hedges' -- that is, buying gold in the paper market -- may not only offset the physical selling but send the price of gold back to levels seen at the end of 2012 when China's gold commodity funding deals really took off in earnest. In other words, from a purely mechanistic standpoint, the unwind of China's shadow banking system, while negative for all non-precious metals-based commodities, may be just the gift that all those patient gold (and silver) investors have been waiting for." Zero Hedge's scenario is speculative and complicated but it's an argument for the suspicion, expressed early in these dispatches, that the attack on gold last April would not have been possible without China's assent and that, indeed, given its enormous foreign exchange surplus, nothing happens in any major market without China's assent. The Zero Hedge commentary is headlined "How China Imported a Record $70 Billion in Physical Gold without Sending the Price Soaring" and it's posted here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-22/how-china-imported-record-70-bi... These financial people are really clever -- but apparently not quite clever enough to figure out how they might do the world any good rather than just themselves. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Canadian Investor Conference 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... |
| Why Some People Will Never Wake Up Posted: 22 Mar 2014 10:00 PM PDT by stephanie, TF Metals Report:
The denial extends beyond just economics, however. I spent most of my adult life in Los Angeles, and, having survived a major earthquake there, my ears pick up at any earthquake news. So while I understand that making a big fuss over a mere 4.4 is a bit silly, it would be stupid to write off a quake found on a new fault in Los Angeles. And yet, here we have a prime example of a person in denial in this comment exchange from a Los Angeles Times story: |
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – The Hunger Games Posted: 22 Mar 2014 09:30 PM PDT from Jesse's CafĂ© AmĂ©ricain:
Nick looked at full weeks, and even much tighter spreads of days, but only looked at FOMC events, and a lot of them going back to 2006, and then even to 1994. I plan on looking at some of his data much more closely, but it does drive home the conclusion that simply betting blindly on around certain events does not work. If it was that easy, everyone would do it. Rather, there are other variables at play, of that I am certain. And I will take a much closer analytical look at all the data, and not just cycles and dates, when I have a greater opportunity. |
| Should You Add Gold and Silver Coins to Your Portfolio? Posted: 22 Mar 2014 09:01 PM PDT When most people think of gold and silver investments today, they think of futures contracts, of ETFs such as the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEARCA:GLD), and the iShares Silver Trust (NYSEARCA:SLV), and of mining companies. However, many precious metal bulls advocate that investors hold some of theirprecious metals in coin form. This seems burdensome. |
| Gold Reserves Top 20 Countries Posted: 22 Mar 2014 09:00 PM PDT [Ed. Note: Presented as Saturday-evening humor] by Mike Shedlock, Global Economic Analysis:
For those who think the US is going to enter hyperinflation with the US dollar becoming completely worthless, I reply that it will not and cannot happen because the US has the world’s largest gold reserves. I am strongly in favor of an audit, but spare me the hype about US gold being titanium-filled bars or the gold has all been removed, etc. |
| Markets Politicized - Perspective on Russia Posted: 22 Mar 2014 06:51 PM PDT The situation with Russia should give investors and traders a reason to brush up on their history, as current events take root in things that happened 50, 100, and 200 years ago. To understand this, can provide perspective, during an information war, where it's not easy for some to separate facts from beliefs and propoganda (on both sides). The relationship between US and Russia has always been interesting, as we shall explore. The cultural divide The US and Russia have very similar cultures. Both; superpowers, with a vast countryside, dominated mostly by white Christians. Both have vast resources, difficult to invade, and both have been the victim of European and other external politics. Of course Russian culture is much older, and has a different set of influences and experiences than the US, situated in North America. There's probably more misinformation in between the two cultures than any other, because for 60 years both have spent significant effort in propoganda. So it's difficult for most Westerners to be objective on this topic. One theory on the divide between the two similar cultures was the decision for Russia to accept Christian Orthodoxy, started by Peter the Great. If you look the dividing lines of political and economic alliances in Europe, historically, there seems to be a correlation with the dominant religion. The American Revolution One interesting fact not reported much was Russian support for America during the American Revolution, both directly and by financing France, and through diplomatic and trade ties. Not that Russia was doing the US any favors in that time, it simply supported their situation, and that they had an interest to not support the British. But it should not be forgotten, that Russian support was crucial for the Americans in their struggle against the British. Alaska Ironically, considering the current US policy about Crimea, the Alaska purchase happened due to circumstances during the Crimean war:
US annexations The larger territory of the current United States was largely purchased or annexed (skipping the original 13 colonies which is a whole different issue). Since the Revolutionay War, the US has aquired most of its territory by this method. In that time the US was a new country. These new aquisitions were exploited by the US, and helped fuel the US industrial revolution, and finally, what enabled the US to build a war machine during the 1940's. World War 2 World War 2 was the defining moment in American history when the US rose to superpower status, eventually creating the US Dollar as the dominant currency for trade in the world. Before World War 2 (and more so before WW1) the US was largely isolationist, not seeing the relevance of foreign affairs. But due to a number of circumstances, and the influence of the British (again, ironically) the US entered WW2 which changed world history. It should be remembered however, that this was a new idea. Before WW2 the US Army was largely comprised of Calvary soldiers on horseback. There was no real Army capable of fighting in that time, the US was not prepared for war. There was not a significant Navy, and certainly no advanced military technology, and no nukes. While most of the world was at war, the US was able to convert its industry, organized by powerful US corporations, to build munitions instead of consumer goods and other products (guns vs. butter). This gave the US the advantage, finally 'winning' the war, and leaving many nations indebted to the US. This is important because this is the origin of American power, and many of these relationships, such as US-German relations, and US-Japan relations, exist to this day, because of WW2. Since WW2, most countries choose to use the US "Petrodollar" - for a number of reasons. But the system is very fragile; as we can see from its origins. For example the deciding factor of 'winning' WW2 was the Manhatten Project, composed of many refugee German scientists. Historians have explored that Germany was in fact working on a similar bomb, but due to their extensive obligations in their operations, were not able to complete it. That, and other advanced technology being developed by Nazi scientists, certainly would have created a different world, economically speaking. European influence Both the US and Russia have been largely influenced by Europe, both in trade and politics. But differently, Russia has been invaded many times by aggressive forces, which the US has not (aside from Canadians burning down the White House but this was not militarily significant). Yes, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, but only because Roosevelt threatened to cut of their oil supply. And it certainly was not an 'invasion' - such as happened to Russia during WW2. In many ways, Russia is more the victim; or at least to say has experienced more hardship as a nation, due to circumstances beyond their control, mostly created by outside influences. Origins of the Cold War Henry Kissinger had recommended to Nixon that one of the most important strategic alliances for the US to pursue was with Russia. His logic was that both countries were culturally similar (more so than for example China) and that a deal with Russia would have cemted both countries long term supremacy and boosted trade. This was never pursued (and maybe never considered) in favor of a hostile policy thus creating the cold war, but it allowed huge spending into the military industrial complex. Since then, the US instead chose to have a special relationship with China, which is now on the verge of a major financial bubble. During this era, the CIA did and intensive analysis of the potential military risk of Russian aggression. The CIA concluded that the Russians have no intention and no capability of posing any risk to the US. But in a press conference, Rumsfeld eloquently said that "Just because we didn't find any threat or capability, doesn't mean they don't have one" and based on this reasoning, we entered the cold war. This information indicates, it was US hawks that initiated an aggressive policy against Russia first. General Patton has pleaded with his commanders to fight the Russians in Germany. Although the cultures are similar, there seems to be some genetic mistrust (or can be explained in a number of different ways, but its not rational). In any case, billions have been spent on propoganda demonizing Russians that they are 'criminals' - according to one prominent propoganda film, Communism is an "International Criminal Conspiracy" (although it was Wall Street that financed the Bolshevik Revolution). It would be extremely politically inappropriate to mention Israel in this context. Nuclear Age Since WW2, real war between two states has become impractical, between nuclear powers. Even with other states, the alliance with a nuclear power then makes war just as impractical. The new war can only involve minor tit for tat conflicts, or be economic. Possibly for this reason, policy makers and scholars in Russia have started incorporating a policy of 'tanks not banks'. This also may explain why the US has not annexed any territory since WW2, and many other policy shifts. Markets Politicized Supposedly, free markets operate based on free and open trade. By imposing sanctions, limiting the use of the SWIFT system, and blocking Visa transactions, it changes the dynamics of the market, irrespective of the potential harm to targeted parties (although many analysts conclude sanctions will harm the West more than Russia). Russian banks and oligarchs probably own at least a few shares of almost all US issues. A certain majority of Russians are NFA members, RAs, etc. Our economies are intertwined, all economies are intertwined, a policy forwarded by those such as Thomas Friedman. If sanctions include the asset freezes of any company owned by a Russian, does that include Bank of America, Caterpiller, McDonalds, etc.? What about holdings of the oligarchs, Russian banks, citizens, inside the US? Russian position As one commentator said, the US is playing marbles, and the Russians are playing Chess. The following video is a must watch, vivid analysis of the Russian position. It's no indication that this will or will not happen, but in this case, they are holding all the economic cards: The situation in Crimea, which has nothing to do with the west, is irrelevant for the West. The relationship with Russia participating in the Western economic system is a net benefit to the West. Russian businesses operate in the US, UK, Germany (not to mention supplying energy to the EU) and invest in the West. They are great customers. Obviously the current administration never worked in the real economy, learning the expression that "The customer is always right." Since Crimea was previously part of Russia, and its mostly Russian speaking, Russians living there, this is really a non-event. West position Not understanding all this, the West has created a situation where many will question the legitimacy of Western markets. Making the economy political changes the dynamics of the market. If we traders and investors spend our energy analyzing the markets to make decisions, and then to have our assets seized or a company we invest in, then it seems we are all in the wrong business. Certainly that is not the idea of capitalism, or free markets. Like during the 2008 credit crisis, when we explored the idea of losses are socialized and profits privatized, this is a very bad omen for not only the asset values, but also the proper functioning of the market. Don't forget 1991 and 1998 When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, trillions of dollars flowed into the West, creating and economic boom for a decade. Oligarchs seized control of previously state owned assets and many of them invested in the West. Trade opened, and the West did business in Russia. One of the dominant Forex trading platforms is from Kazan, Russia (Meta Trader). The economic effects of this event have only been slightly examined - however it can be said they were significant. Then, in 1998, Russia devalued the Ruble and defaulted on some of its obligations, in a period of economic reorganization. The 1998 event is significant because it almost collapsed the world financial system - not by intention, but because of volatility created, which the largest hedge fund in the world at that time, LTCM, was exposed to. Specifically, LTCM was not exposed so much to Russia directly (they were) but it created a chain of events that created havoc in the derivatives market, opening but bond and option spreads to unseen levels, and destroying liquidity (similar to what happened in 2008 which was a US issue). Conclusion It would not be difficult for Russia to start pricing goods in non-USD. Certainly, the US is not going to nuclear war to protect the Petrodollar, as was done in Iraq, Libya, and others. Russia is a huge consumer of USD, not only for reserves, but for trade. Russia has a very strong position, it likes the relationship with the USD, but if Russia feels that its becoming a net loser, it will not think twice about using Gold, Euros, Rubles, or some new Russian Bitcoin. Also it will have a tremendous negative impact on US markets, as Russian money flows out, and trade encouters problems. Any event such as this can create huge volatility in the USD and other US markets. At that time, it's possible the US will react with further political moves to protect the USD (such as Nixon did, not honoring payments in Gold for USD creating modern Forex) including but not limited to, limiting the sale of USD. Clearly, none of the suggested policies would be profitable. There's more money to be made by trading, than through taxes and government restrictions, price controls, capital controls, and other regulations. Dodd-Frank destroyed the retail Forex market in the US. This situation can have far more damage. But traders and investors should be vigilant, understand what's at stake, and understand the potential market impacts; either to profit, or to protect their portfolios. |
| How China Imported A Record $70 Billion In Physical Gold Without Sending The Price Of Gold Soaring Posted: 22 Mar 2014 06:40 PM PDT A little over a month ago, we reported that following a year of record-shattering imports, China finally surpassed India as the world's largest importer of physical gold. This was hardly a surprise to anyone who has been following our coverage of the ravenous demand for gold out of China, starting in September 2011, and tracing it all the way to the present.
China's apetite for physical gold, which is further shown below focusing just on 2012 and 2013, has been estimated by Goldman to amount to over $70 billion in bilateral trade between just Hong Kong and China alone.
Yet while China's gold demand is acutely familiar one question that few have answered is just what is China doing with all this physical gold, aside from filling massive brand new gold vaults of course. And a far more important question: how does China's relentless buying of physical not send the price of gold into the stratosphere. We will explain why below. First, let's answer the question what purpose does gold serve in China's credit bubble "Minsky Moment" economy, where as we showed previously, in just the fourth quarter, some $1 trillion in bank assets (mostly NPLs and shadow loans) were created out of thin air. For the answer, we have to go back to our post from May of 2013 "The Bronze Swan Arrives: Is The End Of Copper Financing China's "Lehman Event"?", in which we explained how China uses commodity financing deals to mask the flow of "hot money", or the one force that has been pushing the Chinese Yuan ever higher, forcing the PBOC to not only expand the USDCNY trading band to 2% recently, but to send the currency tumbling in an attempt to reverse said hot money flows. One thing deserves special notice: in 2013 the market focus fell almost exclusively on copper's role as a core intermediary in China Funding Deals, which subsequently was "diluted" into various other commodities after China's SAFE attempted a crack down on copper funding, which only released other commodities out of the Funding Deal woodwork. We discussed precisely this last week in "What Is The Common Theme: Iron Ore, Soybeans, Palm Oil, Rubber, Zinc, Aluminum, Gold, Copper, And Nickel?" We emphasize the word "gold" in the previous sentence because it is what the rest of this article is about. Let's step back for a minute for the benefit of those 99.9% of financial pundits not intimate with the highly complex concept of China Commodity Funding Deals (CCFDs), and start with a simple enough question, (and answer.) Just what are CCFDs? The simple answer: a highly elaborate, if necessarily so, way to bypass official channels (i.e., all those items which comprise China's current account calculation), and using "shadow" pathways, to arbitrage the rate differential between China and the US. As Goldman explains, there are many ways to bring hot money into China. Commodity financing deals, overinvoicing exports, and the black market are the three main channels. While it is extremely hard to estimate the relative share of each channel in facilitating the hot money inflows, one can attempt to "ballpark" the total notional amount of low cost foreign capital that has been brought into China via commodity financing deals. While commodity financing deals are very complicated, the general idea is that arbitrageurs borrow short-term FX loans from onshore banks in the form of LC (letter of credit) to import commodities and then re-export the warrants (a document issued by logistic companies which represent the ownership of the underlying asset) to bring in the low cost foreign capital (hot money) and then circulate the whole process several times per year. As a result, the total outstanding FX loans associated with these commodity financing deals is determined by: the volume of physical inventories that is involved commodity prices the number of circulations A "simple" schematic involving a copper CCFDs saw shown here nearly a year ago, and was summarized as follows. As we reported previously citing Goldman data, the commodities that are involved in the financing deals include copper, iron ore, and to a lesser extent, nickel, zinc, aluminum, soybean, palm oil, rubber and, of course, gold. Below are the desired features of the underlying commodity:
Here we finally come to the topic of gold because gold is an obvious candidate for commodity financing deals, given it has a high value-to-density ratio, a well-developed paper market and very long "shelf life." Curiously iron ore is not as suitable, based on most of these metrics, and yet according to recent press reports seeking to justify the record inventories of iron ore at Chinese ports, it is precisely CCFDs that have sent physical demand for iron through the proverbial (warehouse) roof. Gold, on the other hand, is far less discussed in the mainstream press in the context of CCFDs and yet it is precisely its role in facilitating hot money flows, perhaps far more so than copper and even iron ore combined, that is so critical for China, and explains the record amount of physical gold imports by China in the past three years. Chinese gold financing deals are processed in a different way compared with copper financing deals, though both are aimed at facilitating low cost foreign capital inflow to China. Specifically, gold financing deals involve the physical import of gold and export of gold semi-fabricated products to bring the FX into China; as a result, China's trade data does reflect, at least partially, the scale of China gold financing deals. In contrast, Chinese copper financing deals do not need to physically move the physical copper in and out of China as explained last year so it is not shown in trade data published by China customs. In detail, Chinese gold financing deals includes four steps:
This is shown in the chart below:
As shown above, gold financing deals should theoretically inflate China's import and export numbers by roughly the same size. For imports, they inflate China's total physical gold imports, but inflate exports that are mainly related to gold products, such as gold foils, plates and jewelry. Sure enough, the value of China's imports of gold from Hong Kong has risen more than 10 fold since 2009 to roughly US$70bn by the end of 2013 while exports of gold and other products have increased by roughly the same amount (shown below). This is in line with the implication of the flow chart on Chinese gold financing deals: the deals inflate both imports and exports by roughly equal size. Given this, that the rapid growth of the market size of gold trading between China and Hong Kong created from 2009 (less than US$5bn) to 2013 (roughly US$70bn) is most likely driven by gold financing deals. However, a larger question remains unknown, namely that as Goldman observes, "we don't know how many tons of physical gold are used in the deals since we don't know the number of circulations, though we believe it is much higher than that for copper financing deals." Recall the flowchart for copper funding deals:
In other words, the only limit on the amount of leverage, aka rehypothecation of copper, was limited only by letter of credit logistics (i.e. corrupt bank back office administrator efficiency), as there was absolutely no regulatory oversight and limitation on how many times the underlying commodity can be recirculated in a CCFD.... And gold is orders of magnitude higher! Despite the uncertainty surrounding the actual leverage and recirculation of the physical, Goldman has made the following estimation: We estimate, albeit roughly, that there are c.US$81-160 bn worth of outstanding FX loans associated with commodity financing deals – with the share of each commodity shown in Exhibit 23. To put it into context, the commodity-related outstanding FX borrowings are roughly 31% of China's short-term FX loans (duration less than 1 year) . Putting the estimated role of gold in China's primary hot money influx pathway, at $60 billion notional, it is nearly three time greater than the well-known Copper Funding Deals, and higher than all other commodity funding deals combined! Under what conditions would Chinese commodity financing deals take place. Goldman lists these as follows:
All of these components are exogenous to the commodity market, except one – the commodity market spread. This reveals an important point that financing deals are, in general, NOT independent of commodity market fundamentals. If the commodity market moves into deficit, or if the financing demand for the commodity is greater than its finite supply of above ground inventory, the commodity market spread adjusts to disincentivize financing deals by making them unprofitable (thus making the physical inventory available to the market). Via 'financing deals', the positive interest rate differential between China and ex-China turns commodities such as copper from negative carry assets (holding copper incurs storage cost and financing cost) to positive carry assets (interest rate differential revenue > storage cost and financing cost). This change in the net cost of carry affects the spreads, placing upward pressure on the physical price, and downward pressure on the futures price, all else equal, making physical-future price differentials higher than they otherwise would be. * * * That bolded, underlined sentence is a direct segue into the second part of this article, namely how is it possible that China imports a mindblowing 1400 tons of physical, amounting to roughly $70 billion in notional, demand which under normal conditions would send the equilibrium price soaring, and yet the price not only does not go up, but in fact drops. The answer is simple: the gold paper market. And here is, in Goldman's own words, is an explanation of the missing link between the physical and paper markets. To be sure, this linkage has been proposed and speculated repeatedly by most, especially those who have been stunned by the seemingly relentless demand for physical without accompanying surge in prices, speculating that someone is aggressively selling into the paper futures markets to offset demand for physical. Now we know for a fact. To wit from Goldman:
Goldman concludes that "an unwind of Chinese commodity financing deals would likely result in an increase in availability of physical inventory (physical selling), and an increase in futures buying (buying back the hedge) – thereby resulting in a lower physical price than futures price, as well as resulting in a lower overall price curve (or full carry)." In other words, it would send the price of the underlying commodity lower.
We agree that this may indeed be the case for "simple" commodities like copper and iron ore, however when it comes to gold, we disagree, for the simple reason that it was in 2013, the year when Chinese physical buying hit an all time record, be it for CCFD purposes as suggested here, or otherwise, the price of gold tumbled by some 30%! In other words, it is beyond a doubt that the year in which gold-backed funding deals rose to an all time high, gold tumbled. To be sure this was not due to the surge in demand for Chinese (and global) physical. If anything, it was due to the "hedged" gold selling by China in the "paper", futures market. And here we see precisely the power of the paper market, where it is not only China which was selling specifically to keep the price of the physical gold it was buying with reckless abandon flat or declining, but also central and commercial bank manipulation, which from a "conspiracy theory" is now an admitted fact by the highest echelons of the statist regime. and not to mention market regulators themselves. Which answers question two: we now know that of all speculated entities who may have been selling paper gold (since one can and does create naked short positions out of thin air), it was likely none other than China which was most responsible for the tumble in price in gold in 2013 - a year in which it, and its billionaire citizens, also bought a record amount of physical gold (much of its for personal use of course - just check out those overflowing private gold vaults in Shanghai. * * * This brings us to the speculative conclusion of this article: when we previously contemplated what the end of funding deals (which the PBOC and the China Politburo seems rather set on) may mean for the price of other commodities, we agreed with Goldman that it would be certainly negative. And yet in the case of gold, it just may be that even if China were to dump its physical to some willing 3rd party buyer, its inevitable cover of futures "hedges", i.e. buying gold in the paper market, may not only offset the physical selling, but send the price of gold back to levels seen at the end of 2012 when gold CCFDs really took off in earnest. In other words, from a purely mechanistical standpoint, the unwind of China's shadow banking system, while negative for all non-precious metals-based commodities, may be just the gift that all those patient gold (and silver) investors have been waiting for. This of course, excludes the impact of what the bursting of the Chinese credit bubble would do to faith in the globalized, debt-driven status quo. Add that into the picture, and into the future demand for gold, and suddenly things get really exciting. |
| How (& Why) JPMorgan & COMEXShould Be Sued For Precious Metals Manipulation Posted: 22 Mar 2014 04:46 PM PDT Submitted by Ted Butler via Gold Silver Worlds blog, I’ve had some recent conversations with attorneys who were considering class-action lawsuits regarding a gold price manipulation stemming from reports about the London Gold Fix. I told them that while there is no doubt that gold and, particularly, silver are manipulated in price, I didn’t see how the manipulation stemmed from the London Fix. I wished them well and hoped that they may prevail (the enemy of my enemy is my friend), because you never know – if the lawyers dig deep enough they might find the real source of the gold and silver manipulation, namely, the COMEX (owned by the CME Group) and JPMorgan. So I thought it might be constructive to lay out what I thought a successful lawsuit might look like, although I’m speaking as a precious metals analyst and not as a lawyer. I’ll try to put the whole thing into proper perspective, including the premise and scope of the manipulation as well as the parties involved. The first thing I should mention is how unprecedented it is that I’m writing this in the first place. Here I am, directly and consistently accusing two of the world’s most important financial institutions of market manipulation (making sure I send each all my accusations) and I have received no complaint from either. I don’t think that has ever occurred previously. Now I am taking it one step further; presenting a guide for how and why JPMorgan and the CME should be sued for their manipulation of gold and silver (and copper, too). Let me explain why I am doing this. I am still certain that the coming physical silver shortage will end the price manipulation, but I see nothing wrong with trying to hasten that day. Over the past quarter century, I petitioned the regulators incessantly to end the manipulation, but the CFTC refused to do so. Far from regretting my past efforts, I feel it has greatly advanced and legitimized the allegations of manipulation. After 25 years, however, one must recognize that the horse being beaten is dead and that the CFTC will never act. So, instead of simply waiting for the silver shortage to end the manipulation, I thought it advisable to try a new approach that was completely compatible with the real silver story to date. Since I (we) couldn’t get the CFTC to do its job and end the manipulation; why not try a different approach? The truth is that I have long believed that the right civil lawsuit stood a good chance at ending the manipulation before a silver shortage hit. I had high hopes initially that the class-action suit that was filed against JPMorgan for manipulating the price of silver a few years ago might succeed; but it seemed to drift off track and I wasn’t particularly surprised that it was ultimately dismissed. My intent should be clear – I want to see the next lawsuit succeed. The stakes in a COMEX silver/gold/copper manipulation lawsuit are staggering. Not only is market manipulation the most serious market crime possible, the markets that have been manipulated and the number of those injured are enormous. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that any finding that JPMorgan and the COMEX did manipulate prices as I contend could very well result in the highest damage awards in history. That’s no small thing considering the tens of billions of dollars that JPMorgan has coughed up recently for infractions in just about every line of their business. My point is that no legal case could be potentially more lucrative or attention getting than this one. Certainly, this also includes the pitfall that JPMorgan and the CME are legal powerhouses who are not likely to roll over easily. Because the silver manipulation has lasted so long and damaged so many, the stakes away from any monetary finding are staggering. It is no real stretch to suggest, with or without eventual criminal findings, the reputational and regulatory repercussions (from other countries) could threaten the existence of each institution in current form (or at least management). What is the theory or premise of the legal case for market manipulation against JPMorgan and the CME? The COMEX has evolved into a trading structure that has allowed speculators to control and dictate the price of world commodities, like gold, silver and copper, with no input from the world’s real producers, consumers and investors in these metals. The CME has allowed and encouraged this development for the sole purpose of increasing trading fee income. Not only do the world’s real metal producers, consumers and investors have no effective input into the price discovery process on the COMEX; because the COMEX is the leading metals price setter in the world, real producers, consumers and investors are forced to accept prices that are dictated to them by speculators on the exchange. Because so few of the world’s real producers, consumers and investors deal on the COMEX, the exchange has developed into a “bucket shop” or a private betting parlor exclusively comprised of speculators. Again, this is an intentional development as much more trading volume is generated by speculative High Frequency Trading (HFT) than by legitimate hedgers (like miners) transferring risk to speculators. Legitimate hedgers don’t day trade. It is no exaggeration to say that the COMEX has been captured by speculators and abandoned by legitimate hedgers. In turn, JPMorgan has developed into the “King Rat” in the speculative bucket shop by virtue of its consistent market corners in COMEX gold, silver and copper futures. The COMEX market structure was already rotten when JPMorgan blasted onto the scene in March 2008 when the bank acquired Bear Stearns’ short market corners in gold and silver. Incredibly, the regulators engineered the Bear Stearns rescue, granting to JPMorgan a listed market control in addition to the OTC market share control that JPM held for years. Talk about a powerful manipulative combo – JPMorgan and the COMEX. Perhaps the most compelling aspect of my premise for a legal case against the CME and JPMorgan for market manipulation is that it is based exclusively on public data available from the CFTC in the form of the agency’s weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) and monthly Bank Participation Reports. There is additional proof of JPM’s controlling market share in the Treasury Department’s OCC OTC Derivatives Report (please see my public comment to the Federal Reserve at the end of this piece). The CFTC data may seem somewhat complex at first, but there can be little question as to its general accuracy and government pedigree. In fact, the data is compiled from exchange information transmitted to the CFTC, so the CME can’t deny its accuracy. There’s no he said/she said or ambiguity in these data series. In short, it is type of data that will hold up in a court of law. According to the CFTC’s data, there are two primary groups of speculators setting prices on the COMEX. One group are the technical funds, traders that buy and sell strictly on price movement. Also referred to as trend followers and momentum traders, the technical funds buy and continue to buy futures contracts as prices climb; and sell and continue to sell, including short sales, as prices fall until prices subsequently reverse. These traders are included in the Managed Money category of the disaggregated version of the COT report, primarily because they are investment funds trading on behalf of outside investors, also known as registered Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA’s). One thing that can be said for certain about these technical funds is that they are pure speculators, as there is no mining company or user of metal in this category by CFTC and CME definition. By itself, there is nothing wrong with that as regulated futures exchanges need speculators to take the other side of the transaction when legitimate hedgers wish to lay off price risk in the normal course of their underlying business. This is the economic justification for why congress had authorized futures trading originally. The problem is that there are few, if any, legitimate hedgers involved on the COMEX nowadays; only other speculators that are falsely categorized as legitimate producers and consumers. The second group of speculators are primarily categorized as commercials, mostly in the Producer/Merchant/Processor/User category, but also in the Swap Dealers category. Since these terms are quite specific and strongly suggest that only legitimate hedgers are included, most people automatically assume the traders in these commercial categories are just that – hedgers. But that is not the case, as most of the traders in these two categories are banks, led by JPMorgan, pretending to be hedging, but which are, in reality, trading on a proprietary basis strictly for profit. Simply put, JPMorgan and other collusive COMEX traders are just pretending to be commercially engaged in COMEX trading in gold, silver and copper when, in reality, they are nothing more than hedge funds in drag. http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/DisaggregatedExplanatoryNotes/index.htm The lynchpin of any legal case against JPMorgan and the CME revolves around whether the traders in the commercial categories of the COT report are, in fact, hedging or simply speculating, as are the technical funds. The CME and JPMorgan will go to the ends of the earth to show that the commercials are hedging, not speculating and will hide behind the twin concepts that the commercials are either trading on behalf of clients or are actively involved in market making and are thereby providing much needed liquidity. It will sound legitimate if you believe in make believe stories instead of facts. JPMorgan has a history of proclaiming it is hedging when confronted with an unnecessarily large speculative position. The first thing the bank declared when the London Whale debacle surfaced was that it was part of a hedge against the bank’s portfolio. But that was openly scoffed at and quickly discarded as an excuse. JPM is likely to trot out the hedging or market making justification, but any competent attorney will blow that away. No one (openly or legitimately) granted JPMorgan the right to maintain market corners in COMEX gold and silver. In December 2012, JPMorgan held market shares on the short side of COMEX gold and silver that amounted to 20% and 35% of the net open interest in each market respectively. It is not possible that a reasonable person would not consider those market shares in an active regulated futures market to constitute market corners. After rigging prices lower by historical amounts in 2013, JPMorgan flipped its short market corner in COMEX gold to a long market corner of as much as 25% and reduced its short market corner in COMEX silver to under 15% from 35%, pocketing more than $3 billion in illicit profits. I’d like to see JPMorgan explain some connection to hedging with regards to its position change. Undoubtedly, JPMorgan will claim it was “making markets” to explain away its huge position shifts in COMEX gold and silver (and copper), proclaiming it was always a buyer on the downside and a seller on the upside of prices. True enough, but far from being the market hero it will pretend to be, a closer examination will reveal something else entirely. The purpose of market making is to provide market liquidity and price stability. Legitimate traders are given some leeway from regulations limiting speculative positions and market shares from growing too large in order to enhance liquidity and price stability which benefits everyone. But the record clearly indicates that JPMorgan, in cahoots with the CME, has used its dominant market shares in COMEX gold, silver and copper to instead engage in an evil form of market making whose intent is to constrict liquidity and create disorderly pricing. What record indicates that? The price record. Twice in 2011, the price of silver fell more than 30% ($15) in a matter of days and last year gold fell $200 and silver by $5 in two days. These price declines were unprecedented, had no legitimate supply/demand explanation and the regulators, including the CME did or said anything. For sure, JPMorgan was a buyer on those deliberate price smashes and every other COMEX gold, silver and copper price smash for the past six years, but how does that make them a hero? This crooked bank and the CME and others arranged every COMEX price smash in order to create chaos, drain liquidity and disrupt pricing; the exact opposite of what legitimate market making is supposed to be. JPMorgan and the CME violated public trust in our markets as proven by the price record. For that, they should be made to pay dearly. The key question is how did (and does) JPMorgan and the CME pull this off repeatedly? It all has to do with market mechanics, of which JPM and the CME are absolute masters. Since there are, essentially, two separate and competing speculative groups setting prices on the COMEX, it comes down one group scamming the other. (I know this is old hat to subscribers, but please remember I’m writing this to convince the right attorney to take on these crooks). So how does JPM get positioned to profit from a price smash (or price rise) and then rig prices to go in their direction? Basically, by scamming the technical funds by getting those funds to do what is profitable for JPMorgan and other collusive commercial traders and including the CME in the form of extraordinarily large trading volume. How the heck does JPMorgan and the CME pull that off? They can pull it off because they know how the technical funds operate and because JPM and the CME also know how to cause the funds to buy and sell when JPM wants them to buy and sell. Since the technical funds only buy as prices are rising and only sell as prices are falling, particularly when prices penetrate key moving averages, all JPMorgan and the other collusive commercials have to do is occasionally set prices above and below those key moving averages. And thanks to an array of dirty trading tricks developed over the past 30 years, the most recent being HFT, JPMorgan can set short term prices wherever it chooses, whenever it desires. In a very real sense, JPMorgan and other collusive COMEX commercials have become the puppet masters controlling the technical funds’ movements. It is an exquisite racket – JPMorgan gets the technical funds to buy or sell in order to take the other side of the transaction as counterparties. This can be seen in almost every price move in COMEX gold, silver and copper over the years. Let me try to present the data in graphic form, courtesy of some charts by my Aussie friend, Nick Laird of sharelynx.com. Depicted below are the three main metals of the COMEX, gold, silver and copper and the net positions of the traders in the managed money category – the technical funds over the past couple of years. If you plot when the technical funds buy or sell, there is almost a 100% correlation to price. In other words, when the technical funds buy, prices for gold, silver and copper rise and when the technical funds sell, prices fall. The correlation is almost uncanny, to the point where some pundits have recently claimed that it is the technical funds, not the commercials, which are manipulating prices. But those claims melt away once one considers the nature of this bucket shop fraud.
Sure, the technical funds move prices when they buy and sell, but that’s just what JPMorgan and the CME count on. If the technical funds weren’t mechanical and predictable there would be no scam possible. It is only because the technical funds can be counted on to do the same thing repetitively that allows JPMorgan and other collusive commercials to take counterparty positions. If the technical funds weren’t predictable, JPMorgan would never have made $3 billion+ last year in COMEX gold and silver and been able to flip a short market corner in COMEX gold to a long market corner. Or just ask yourself – why would the technical funds collude to harm themselves? I also feel it is significant that I can now include copper in the JPMorgan/CME illicit scheme to manipulate. This broadens the manipulation in a systemically important way. If ever there was a case for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), this must be it. In one recent attorney conversation, I was asked to provide the name of a technical fund that was duped as I described and would like to seek legal redress. If I could have, I would have, but I don’t think that’s possible. It’s another reason I refer to this COMEX manipulation as almost the perfect crime. In this case, any technical fund would not likely seek redress as a victim (certainly not as the initiator of legal action) because to do so would involve having to admit being the mark at a crooked poker game, something not conducive to attracting additional investor funds. In fact, it would invalidate a technical fund’s core business and be tantamount to simply quitting a business that may have been in existence for decades. It just isn’t going to happen. But that hardly matters because the nature of market manipulation means there are untold numbers of other victims, particularly considering the scope of the gold, silver and copper markets. Whereas the technical funds were both the enablers and sometimes victims of the scam I described above, there are many thousands of legitimate victims (including me and many of you) who did nothing to enable the scam. I dare say that there are more potential victims of the JPMorgan/COMEX gold, silver and copper manipulations than in just about any previous financial fraud. Let’s face it, there is hardly a mining company or investor in gold and silver or mining company shares that hasn’t been damaged over the past six years to some extent. That’s when JPMorgan came to dominate COMEX trading. If a legitimate class-action lawsuit was initiated, I believe potential litigants would emerge in massive numbers. Then again, there’s only one way to find out for sure and that’s to have such a case filed. On a number of occasions in the past, when there was still some slim hope that the CFTC might address the ongoing silver manipulation, I publicly requested that you should submit public comments on issues related to position limits. By my count, upwards of 10,000 comments were submitted collectively, for which I offered my profuse thanks. Unfortunately, because the agency appeared to be compromised on the issue, no real good came from it through no fault of our own. Therefore, I would hardly ask anyone to do that again. But I was reminded by a subscriber that I should submit a comment in regard to the Federal Reserve’s open public comment period seeking input on whether banks should be allowed to deal in physical commodities and derivatives on such commodities. I had mentioned in a previous article that I was undecided whether to do so or not. The subscriber convinced me that it was the right thing to do in order to go on the record, to which I had to agree. I understand the comment period has been extended to April 14, for anyone wishing to submit comments for the record. There have been less than 80 comments posted thru today and mine are near the bottom http://www.federalreserve.gov/apps/foia/ViewAllComments.aspx?doc_id=R-1479&doc_ver=1
Gold & Silver Market Manipulation: Fed Open Comment March 2014 |
| Top 10 nations stockpiling gold Posted: 22 Mar 2014 03:49 PM PDT By Eric McWhinnie Discussions involving gold hoarders tend to generate images of the stereotypical nervous Nellie hiding out somewhere in the wilderness. Uncivilized and irrational, they count their so-called barbaric stacks of gold, which are located next to a lifetime supply of canned goods. While this portrayal may be amusing, the biggest hoarders of gold are some of the most advanced nations in the world. ... ... For the full story: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/22/wall-st-cheat-sh... ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Canadian Investor Conference 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata |
| Economic Collapse 2014 -- Current Economic Collapse News Brief Posted: 22 Mar 2014 03:18 PM PDT In this news brief we will discuss the latest news on the economic collapse. We look to see if things are really that different. The central bank will not stop at just confiscating your wealth they will want your life. They want to enslave the people. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]] |
| Maguire tells KWN about coordinated disinformation about gold Posted: 22 Mar 2014 03:08 PM PDT 6:07a HKT Sunday, March 23, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Interviewed by King World News, London metals trader Andrew Maguire reviews what is not only disinformation about gold trading but what seems like coordinated disinformation: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/3/22_Ma... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Canadian Investor Conference 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... |
| Guest Post: Oil Limits And The Economy - One Story; Not Two Posted: 22 Mar 2014 02:48 PM PDT Submitted by Gail Tverberg of Our Finite World blog, The two big stories of our day are:
While the press treats these issues as separate stories, they are in fact very closely connected, related to the fact that we are reaching limits in many different directions simultaneously. The economy is the coordinating system that ties together all available resources, as well as the users of these resources. It does this almost magically, by figuring out what prices are needed to keep the system in balance—how much materials of which types are needed, given what consumers can afford to pay. The catch is that the economic system is not infinitely flexible. It needs to grow, to have enough funds to (sort of) pay back debt with interest and to make good on all the promises that have been made, such as Social Security. Energy use is very closely tied to economic growth. When energy consumption becomes slow-growing (or high-priced—which is closely tied to slow-growing), it pulls back on economic growth. Job growth becomes more difficult, and governments find it difficult to get enough funding through tax revenue. This is the situation we have been experiencing for the last several years. We might think that governments would be aware of these issues and would alert their populations to them. But governments either don’t understand these issues, or only partially understand them and are frightened by the prospect of what is happening. The purpose of my writing is to try to explain what is happening in terms that people who are used to reading the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times can understand. I am not an economist, so I can’t speak to the question of what economists are saying. I do know that what economists say tends to change from time to time and from researcher to researcher. For example, in 2004, the International Energy Agency prepared an analysis with the collaboration of the OECD Economics Department and with the assistance of the International Monetary Fund Research Department (Full Report, Summary only). That report said, “. . . a sustained $10 per barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second year of higher prices. Inflation would rise by half a percentage point and unemployment would also increase.” This finding is consistent with the issues I am concerned about, but I expect that not all economists would agree with it. Oil prices are now around $100 per barrel, not $35 per barrel. The Tie of Oil and Other Forms of Energy to the Economy Oil and other forms of energy are used to power the economy. Historically, rises and falls in the use of oil and other types of energy have tended to parallel GDP growth (Figure 1). ![]() Figure 1. Growth in world GDP, compared to growth in world of oil consumption and energy consumption, based on 3 year averages. Data from BP 2013 Statistical Review of World Energy and USDA compilation of World Real GDP. There is disagreement as to which is cause and which is effect—does GDP growth lead to more oil and energy demand, or does the availability of cheap oil and other types of energy power the economy? In my view, the causality goes both ways. Oil and other types of energy are needed for economic growth. But if people cannot afford oil or other types of energy products, typically because they don’t have jobs, then energy use will drop. And if oil prices drop too low, we will be in real trouble because oil production will stop. How Oil Limits Work People tend to think of limits as working in the same manner as having a box with a dozen eggs. Once the last egg is gone, we are out of luck. Or a creek dries up from lack of rainfall. The water is no longer available, so we have lost our water source. With the benefit of the economy, though, limits are more complicated than this. If we live in today’s economy, we can purchase another box of eggs if we run short of eggs, assuming markets provide eggs at a price we can afford. If the creek runs dry, we can figure out a different approach to getting water, such as buying bottled water or hiring a tanker to get water from a source at a distance and bringing it to where it is needed. Oil limits are a kind of limit we often hear concerns about. Being able to drill oil wells at all and refine the oil into products of many kinds requires a complex economy, one that can educate engineers working in oil extraction and can build paved roads, pipelines, and refineries. The economy needs to be able to produce high tech equipment using raw materials from around the world. Thus, there must be an operating financial system that allows buyers at one end of the globe to purchase materials from the other end of the globe, and sellers to have the confidence that they will be paid for contracted products. If a company wants to extract oil, it can almost always figure out places where this theoretically can be done. If a company can gather together all of the things it needs—trained workers; enough high tech extraction equipment of the right type; enough pollution-fighting equipment, to prevent oil spills and spills of radioactive water; and leases on land where drilling is to done, then, in theory, oil can be extracted. In fact, the big issue is whether the extraction can be done in a sufficiently cost-effective manner that the whole economic system can be supported. Even if the cost of extraction “looks” fairly cheap, such as in Iraq, or in some of the older installations elsewhere in the Middle East, the vast majority of the revenue that is generated from oil extraction (often as much as 90%) goes to support the government of the country where the oil is extracted (Rogers, 2014). This revenue is needed for many purposes: desalination plants to provide water for the people; food subsidies, especially when oil prices are high because food prices will tend to be high as well; new ports and other infrastructure; and revenue to provide jobs and programs to pacify the people so that the government will not be overtaken by revolt. A major issue at this point is the fact that most of the easy-to-extract oil is already under development, so companies that want to develop new projects need to move on to locations that are more difficult and expensive to extract (Bloomberg, 2007). According to oil industry consultant Steven Kopits, the cost of one major category of oil production expenses increased by an average of 10.9% per year between 1999 and 2013. In the period between 1985 and 1999, these same expenses increased by 0.9% per year (Kopits, 2014) (Tverberg, 2014). When production costs are higher, someone loses out. It is as if the economy is becoming less and less efficient. It takes more people, more energy products, and more equipment to produce the same amount of oil. This leaves fewer people and less energy products to produce the goods and services that people really want, putting a squeeze on the economy. The economy tends to grow less quickly because part of the goods and services available are being channeled into less productive operations. The situation of the economy becoming less and less efficient at producing oil is called diminishing returns. A similar problem exists with fresh water in many parts of the world. We can extract more fresh water, but it takes deeper wells. Or we have to ship in water from a distance, using a pipeline or trucks. Or we need to use desalination. Water is still available but at a higher per-gallon price. Diminishing Returns is Like a Treadmill that Runs Faster and Faster There are many ways we can reach diminishing returns. One easy-to-illustrate example relates to mining metals. We usually extract the cheapest-to-extract ores first. An important cost consideration is how much waste material is mixed in with the metal we really want–this determines the ore “grade.” As we are gradually forced to move from high-grade ores to lower-grade ores, the amount of waste material grows slowly at first, then dramatically increases (Figure 2). We know that this kind of effect is happening right now. For example, the SRSrocco Report indicates that between 2005 and 2012, diesel consumption per ounce of refined gold has doubled from 12.7 gallons per ounce to 25.8 gallons per ounce, based on the indications of the top five companies. Such a pattern suggests that if we want to extract more gold, the price of gold will need to rise. The economy is affected by all of the types of diminishing returns that are taking place (oil, fresh water, several kinds of metals, and others). Even attempting to substitute “renewables” for nuclear and fossil fuels electricity production acts as a type of diminishing returns, if such substitution raises the cost of electricity production, as it seems to in Germany and Spain. If the total extent of diminishing returns is not very great, increased efficiency and substitution can act as workarounds. But if the combined effect becomes too great, diminishing returns acts as a drag on the economy. Oil Increases are Already Higher than the Economy Can Comfortably Absorb For oil, we can estimate the historical impact of increased efficiency and substitution by looking at the historical relationship between growth in GDP and growth in oil consumption. Based on the worldwide data underlying Figure 1, this has averaged 2.0% to 2.4% per year since 1970, depending on the period studied. Occasional years have exceeded 3%. The problem in recent years is that increases in the cost of oil production have been much higher than 2% to 3%. As mentioned previously, a major portion of oil extraction costs seem to be increasing at 10.9% per year. To make this comparable to inflation adjusted GDP increases, the 10.9% increase needs to be adjusted (1) to take out the portion related to “overall inflation” and (2) to adjust for likely lower inflation on the portion of oil production costs not included in Kopits’ calculation. Even if this is done, total oil extraction costs are probably still increasing by about 5% or 6% per year—higher than we have historically been able to make up. According to Kopits, we are already reaching a point where oil limits are constraining OECD GDP growth by 1% to 2% per year (Kopits, 2014) (Tverberg, 2014). Efficiency gains aren’t happening fast enough to allow GDP to grow at the desired rate. A major concern is that the treadmill of rising costs will speed up further in the future. If it is hard to keep up now, it will be even harder in the future. Also, the economy “adds together” the adverse effects of diminishing returns from many different sources—-higher electricity cost of production, higher metal cost of production, and the higher cost of oil production. The economy has to increasingly struggle because wages don’t rise to handle all of these increased costs. As one might guess, when economies hit diminishing returns on resources that are important to the economy, the results aren’t very good. According to Joseph Tainter (1990), many of these economies have collapsed. Why Haven’t Governments Told Us About these Difficulties? The story outlined above is not an easy story to understand. It is possible that governments don’t fully understand today’s problems. It is easy to focus on one part of the story such as, “Shale oil extraction is rising in response to higher oil prices,” and miss the important rest of the story—the economy cannot really withstand high oil (and water and electricity and metals) prices. The economy tends to contract in response to a need to use so many resources in increasingly unproductive ways. We associate this contraction with recession. We have many researchers looking at these issues. Unfortunately, most of these researchers are focused on one small portion of the story. Without understanding the full picture, it is easy to draw invalid conclusions. For example, it is easy to get the idea that we have more time for substitution than we really have. Financial systems are fragile. The world financial system almost failed in 2008, after oil prices spiked. We are still in very worrisome territory, with many countries continuing a policy of Quantitative Easing and ultra low interest rates. We may have only a few months or a year or two left for substitution, not 40 or 50 years, as some seem to assume. Of course, if governments do understand the worrisome nature of our current situation, they may not want to say anything. It could make the situation worse, if citizens start a “run on the banks.” The other side of the issue is that if governments and citizens don’t understand the full story, they may inadvertently do things that will make the situation worse. They certainly won’t be looking long and hard at what collapse might look like in the current context and what can be done to mitigate its impacts. |
| Experts Still Wrong About Strong Upside Movement In Gold And Silver Posted: 22 Mar 2014 02:00 PM PDT From our perspective, the charts reflect the reality of the unreal within the ruling Western elites that continue their financial stranglehold over every Western government, at a minimum, and through their central banks dictating how governments are to rule the governed, aka those enslaved into the system. [We will deal with how charts are the best read, later in the commentary]
Have you ever wondered why there are so many wars, why people cannot just "get along?" The Rothschilds see to it that dissent is fostered and civil unrest is encouraged, eventually leading to war. There is no country on earth that has been responsible for more wars and promoting them than the elite-controlled, puppet-run United States. The list, starting from the Korean war and Viet Nam, to present times is appalling but purposeful. If it were not for Putin, Obomba would have promoted his [yet another] false flag chemical use against civilians as reason for bombing Syria. That door politically foreclosed on him, Netanyahu has picked up the mantel. Israel may not go too far, for it has some gas deals with Russia, and it would be bad economics to keep pushing against Syria. "Give me control of a nation's money, and I care not who makes the laws," was not some idle boast on Rothschild's part. He literally began controlling governments. Once in control of governments, lending to controlling influences, through licensing, like the news media, the medical industry, communications, drug industry, education, the military, the web of money was all-controlling. What makes the Rothschild formula so successful is that it became systematized. In every sphere of influence Rothschild "agents" were present and an integral part of how things functioned, always in furthering the financial ends of the family empire, and nothing was more controlling than the banking system. This was how the United States was gutted from within. First came the installation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, then the IRS in 1916, neither of which pass organic Constitutional muster, but the organic Constitution was replaced by a mirror federal constitution, written to favor the Rothschild interests. This is the Rothschild's For Dummies abbreviated version of a very complex, very devious takeover of the world. In every instance, when the Rothschild's loaned governments cash or its equivalent, gold was demanded as payment in return. If there were not enough gold, silver was also acceptable. When both ran out, control of the financial arm of the government, [the money supply], came next. Once control of every part of finance was under control, then came control of everything else. The love of money is the root of all evil, and evil reigns. All Western governments are criminal enterprises, and none more so than the United States, exporting its perverted form of "democracy," [debt at the barrel of a gun...not just a gun, invasions, tanks, drones, torture, every imaginable form of black-ops to create civil unrest...snipers in the Ukraine killing both sides, as a current example].
Whenever a country is invited into the EU web, that country's onerous debt is compounded with even more, impossible to repay debt. What then follows are "austerity" programs, and now bail-ins, and for what? To save the insolvent banking system that created the disastrous financial, derivative-laced problems to begin with. Who elected the people in control at the IMF? The BIS? The EU? No one. They represent no one. They are all agents in the service of the Rothschild elites, and their only mission is to gain absolute control over all of the money and over every citizen within the criminally corrupt web of Western governments. Ukraine has nothing to do about "spreading democracy." It is all about control over energy sources, especially the flow of natural gas to Europe. The West has been at growing risk of losing its fiat "petro-dollar" control as the East, along with its resource riches and rising gold reserves, positions itself to take over. Who is leading the charge from the West? Once again, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient is pounding on the undertone drums of war, from half-way around the world, and with no skin in the game.
When the deal between China and Russia is finalized, it will be another nail in the coffin of the fiat "petro-dollar," for the "dollar" will not be a part of the deal. It continues to be exit stage left for the waning US influence. Hard to decide: no more debt-driven activity from the West versus offers of more lucrative international trade from the East? These Western sanctions from the dumber-than-dumb West must really have Russia concerned. Even more! The G-8 nations want to impose sanctions, as well. 7 of those 8 Western nations are essentially insolvent.
Everything has been revolving around gold, and the West has played a losing hand. Its ace in the hole is what we referenced as "the system." The West has had its bluff called, over gold, and it has folded, much like the paper exchanges, COMEX and LBMA are. Paper-covers-rock may win in the Rock, Paper, Scissors game, but in real life, using debt paper to cover over the loss of golden rocks does not work. If the East has gained control of the gold, and the West is essentially insolvent to its core, why aren't gold and silver finding a higher level that, at a minimum, would reflect a simple adjustment for inflation for the past few decades? The Rothschild influence and control of the world's [all fiat] money, its total control over the governments of the West, except those within the BRICS sphere, is so pervasive that it has to have some degree of tie-in even with the independently driven countries like China, India, and now much less so with Russia, as Putin has tired of Obama's utter pettiness. The war for resource control is what is influencing the price of gold and silver, and for as long as the West can influence events around the world, it will continue to be more than a thorn in the side of the East, and gold and silver will continue to seek a bottom. Amidst the sometimes "wildly" bullish attitudes toward gold, from a number of experts, so-called or self-professed, gold has not made any strong inroads on the weekly chart, a time frame more indicative of overall stronger buyers and sellers. Bearish spacing remains intact, and the current price swing high has stopped under the last swing high. If it were pure fundamentals driving the price of gold, it would be at much higher levels. If it is not fundamentals driving the market, then the most likely reasoning has to be something along the lines we have discussed. Whatever it is, however perverted the paper markets have become, even manipulated markets that are going to fail will begin to show signs of failure before the reality sets in. We see nothing in the charts that indicates an end to the grasp of the Rothschild ilk. The daily trend is up. The current correction just erased the effort of the past 3 weeks. Of the 4 selling bars, the last was the smallest in range with an upper end close and at an area of support. The volume was relatively high, under the circumstances, and it indicates buyers were more in control than sellers. Fridays weak rally was still a higher high, low and close from the previous one. If the trend is to remain intact, gold should renew it upward momentum. If not, then adjustments will be in order to suit the new information from the market. The chart comments say it all. We normally do not include intra day charts, but this does show a lack of strong selling volume as price moved sideways over the last 3 days. Many articles have been written about the explosive potential for silver, and at some point, it may happen, but for now, silver is languishing at the lows, and it gives no signs for a potentially strong move to the upside. All anyone has to do is look at this chart and draw one's own conclusion. Where daily gold is in an up trend, daily silver is not. Looking at silver in the most positive light, from a chart read, it is at support, and it is in an oversold condition while at support. The combination may give rise to a rally, in the days ahead. However, if silver were to rally next week, it would still be viewed as a rally within a down trend. $50, $100, $200 silver? It cannot clear its way above $22. How do the experts reconcile that with so much "rosy" enthusiasm? We like silver, but one has to be a realist and deal with what is. Accumulation of the physical is highly recommended, as is personally holding it, outside of any banking system. Even the intra day trend for silver remains down. There are several points to be made for positive behavior as this metal continues to bottom, but at some level, it should begin to "show its hand," if there is the underlying strength so many maintain. |
| Puerto Rico Bonds Tumble On Possible Hedge Fund Pump-And-Dump Probe Posted: 22 Mar 2014 01:31 PM PDT In what many thought was a miracle of modern money-printing-driven yield-chasing, Puerto Rico managed to get $3.5 billion of bonds off last week with no problem (albeit at a 8.73% yield). The issue (while perhaps not as surprising as the low yield issues of Uganda we have reflected on previously) raised some eyebrows and in the trading since its release, FINRA noticed something concerning. The bonds, as Bloomberg reports, are supposed to 'minimum denomination $100,000' blocks and yet 75 trades this week have been for no more than $25,000 violating regulations which deem these for "institutional purchasers" and strongly suggesting the heavy hedge fund demand was nothing more than a pump-and-dump scheme to unsophisticated retail investors. PR bonds have plunged from par to $92 this week.
Puerto Rico borrowed $3.5 billion at 8.73% yield maturing in 2035 - funding itself through June 2015 and staving off imminent default risk with the biggest ever high-yield muni offering! As Bloomberg notes,
However, once the bonds were free to trade March 11, things changed...
This is a problem that FINRA is looking into...
A glance at the chart shows both the illiquidity in the market (huge bid-offers) and the major drop on Friday as FINRA unveiled its probe (suggesting those wanting to get rid - hoping to find greater fools - dumped them fast). However,
Of course, this could be merely splitting across accounts (or smal lupsizing from already $100,000 accounts) and all be a big misunderstanding... you decide which is more likely. |
| Charles Goyette -- Global Economic Balance Shifting East Posted: 22 Mar 2014 12:34 PM PDT Gold Seek Radio interviews CHARLES GOYETTE - March 19, 2014 Charles Goyette has long been known in Phoenix as "America's Most Independent Talk Show Host!" With years of hands-on experience as an investment professional, he brings a welcome dimension of foresight and clarity to his political and... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]] |
| Posted: 22 Mar 2014 12:14 PM PDT Official gold market to open in South Korea Posted on : Mar.21,2014 16:39 KST By Cho Ki-won, staff reporter On Mar. 19, two gold bars were brought to Ilsan in Gyeonggi Province and deposited in the safe of the Korea Securities Depository (KSD), an organization that stores gold for the gold market. In order... Read more » The post In The News Today appeared first on Jim Sinclair's Mineset. |
| Maguire - Goldman & Media Full Of Sh*t When It Comes To Gold Posted: 22 Mar 2014 12:14 PM PDT Today the man who was the original London metals market whistleblower takes King World News readers on a trip down the rabbit hole of propaganda and outright lies made to the public which are emanating from the mainstream media, Goldman Sachs, and other major banking institutions. Below is what London metals trader Andrew Maguire had to say in Part II of a powerful series of interviews that have now been released.This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 22 Mar 2014 11:09 AM PDT Young, older or retired, we're all speculators now. Junior mining stocks might suit... I HAD the.privilege of interviewing Louis James, chief metals & mining investment strategist here at Casey Research, writes Dennis Miller, editor of Miller's Money Forever. Louis is the editor of Casey International Speculator, the first subscription newsletter I ever bought, and I am holding a good number of his recommendations. Personally, I've really been looking forward to this interview, as it sort of brings my own investment journey full circle. Louis is quite the globetrotter, visiting mines all over the world. I am glad we were finally able to corral him long enough to share his expertise with our readers... Dennis Miller: Louis, thanks for taking a few minutes to join us. Louis James: You're very welcome – I'm happy to help. Dennis Miller: I want to start with the big picture before we get into specifics. Most of my readers are on either side of the retirement cusp – making conservative investing paramount – but if 5-10% of your portfolio is in a speculative pick and it doubles, that relieves pressure from the rest of your portfolio. Can you explain how the mining sector and how some of your picks might fit into the speculative portion? Louis James: I've got two answers for that question. First, if Doug Casey is right about the Greater Depression, there is no such thing as a safe investment. You have to remember that at the peak of the crisis in 2008, we were told that checks came within 48 hours of not clearing banks. General Motors filed for bankruptcy. American Airlines filed for bankruptcy. In the post-Lehman Brothers world, absolutely nothing is safe. We are all speculators now. The only difference is whether we recognize that or not, and act accordingly. So while it may seem like the kind of speculation I recommend is too high risk for someone nearing retirement, someone who may not have time to start over again has all the more reason to offset the omnipresent risk with some allocation in high-yield speculations. As Doug says, it's better to risk 10% of your portfolio on high-risk, high-reward speculation than to risk 100% of your portfolio on so-called safe investments that may not even keep up with inflation. Furthermore, if Doug is right about the Greater Depression, even people with considerable assets accumulated may find themselves with liquidity problems and even cash-flow deficits. If, for example, a high-net-worth individual's wealth is tied up in real estate, and the real estate market seizes up, he or she might not be able to liquidate assets, even if that became necessary to replace lost income. In a world where no financial institution of any kind can be relied upon absolutely, even a "solid as bedrock" annuity is vulnerable to some risk. Simply put, no one can afford to rest on their laurels. The second line of reasoning may challenge some of your readers, and may contradict my first point slightly, but not if you consider the long term. Forgive me for being blunt, but I don't know any polite way to put this: no one who is not on death's door should plan on dying any time soon. There are new medical technologies under development now – some quite close to market – that have radical implications for human longevity. Soon it will make no sense to think of anyone who is not over 100 as old. And by the way, I don't just mean surviving hooked to all kinds of machines in a hospital room, but living in better health than we may have now. Sure, misfortunes may befall us before we get to enjoy the benefits of these technologies – I'm not promising eternal life next week. What I am saying is that everyone who is not facing a certain and short life expectancy should plan for the future. And they should not assume that they won't need money after a few more years. Everyone in their 60s should have a financial plan that, at least conceptually, covers the next 50 years. The world will be vastly different in 10 or 15 years, of course, so clearly plans can't be too detailed, but they should exist. People should not assume their financial needs will zero out any time soon. Given these factors, it is more crucial than ever for retirees to use their accumulated capital to generate more capital, and not focus exclusively on protecting the nest egg. They worked hard for their money; now it's time for that money to work hard for them. The best way we've found for money to generate not just a trickle of income but substantial new wealth is to speculate on what we admittedly call "the most volatile stocks on earth": junior resource stocks. Dennis Miller: In the old days, I would fill out retirement planner worksheets that predicted how long my money would last. On the conservative side, if the computer said you were covered until age 120, you were fine. I always figured if I ran out at 119, the hell with it. You're saying 120 years old is a lot more relevant than I thought when I was filling out those worksheets in my 50s. Louis James: Absolutely! No one wants to run out of money at any age, which is why they should always use their capital to generate more capital. Dennis Miller: When we looked at technology stocks, Alex recommended a company that was developing several new medical tests. I got the impression that it was basically doing the research and development, but once the tests were perfected and had the necessary approvals, they would be purchased by a larger company. Are junior mining companies similar? Are they, in effect, like research and development for the mining industry? Louis James: That's a very good analogy. The major mining companies look at the juniors as a source of Other People's Money – we call it "OPM". It's a good symbiosis. The big companies tend to be bureaucratic – and we can't really blame them because they have tens of thousands of employees all around the world. But mineral exploration is a high-risk venture, not very compatible with a bureaucratic mindset. The big companies are happy to buy quality assets that have been studied and de-risked, even if it means paying many times what it cost the junior company to make its discovery. The situation is highly analogous to Alex's technology companies, where the outcome tends to be binary. If a company developing a new drug gets FDA approval, it goes from having nothing but a very expensive dream to having something with a potential multibillion-Dollar market. Similarly, a junior exploration company goes from having nothing but a geologist's dream to having Probable and Proven mining reserves in the ground that even bankers will lend money on. The consequences for shareholders who buy in early can be staggering – life-changing, in fact. Dennis Miller: Why wouldn't a person just invest in a junior mining ETF or something? That would give them real diversification, wouldn't it? Louis James: It would, but it would also put someone else's judgment in charge of the speculation, not their own. Furthermore, when funds take significant positions in small companies that don't trade a lot of shares daily, they face liquidity problems entering and exiting at good prices. An individual investor can often get their orders filled at better prices on both the buy and sell sides, and can take better advantage of market volatility to achieve lower cost bases. Even if the fund includes a big winner, that upside is diluted across the average portfolio performance of every company in the fund. Truth be told, we would never bet on the sector as a whole. Junior mineral companies as a group are a lousy speculation. You have to be able to pick out the diamonds in the rough – speculate only on the best of the best. Many fund managers approach this in a highly quantitative way. They have their spreadsheets, their models, and their parameters. They make their picks based on what fits the numbers they're looking for best. In my experience, this actually does help identify companies selling cheap, but often fails to identify the reasons why a company is selling cheap. Dennis Miller: Earlier we discussed the similarity of junior mining stocks to pharmaceutical stocks. One of the major differences I see in the two sectors is this: If a pharmaceutical stock hits a winner with FDA approval, there will probably be multiple bidders for the patents, regardless of how the sector is performing at the time. But in the case of junior mining stocks, say gold jumps a couple hundred Dollars an ounce: wouldn't your entire sector move in tandem and benefit a lot? Louis James: Yes, that's true about the sector. However, not all companies are equal, nor do they all benefit equally. First, and somewhat ironically, a miner with a very high profit margin benefits proportionally less from an increase in the price of the metal being mined. Say you're a gold miner, producing for $500 an ounce. If gold goes from $1600 to $1700, your profit increases from $1100 to $1200, or less than 10%. But if you're producing for $1500 an ounce, and gold rises by the same amount, your profit increases from $100 to $200 Dollars per ounce, or 100%. That's no reason not to buy a highly profitable producer. You just play things differently if you want to speculate on changes in the price of gold vs. buying a great company. Second, when you speculate on a junior exploration company making a discovery, it doesn't – or shouldn't – make any difference how the price of gold fluctuates. The company has no gold yet; changes in the price of something it has none of should not matter. We don't buy these stocks because we think gold is going up; we buy them because we think their chances of making a significant discovery are excellent. When this happens, they can go from having nothing to having something of great value. The change in value is substantial, and the consequences for shareholders can be spectacular. Successful smaller companies can be bought out by the bigger players in the field, just as with those pharmaceuticals you mentioned. This is actually one of our preferred exit strategies; it can be hard to get a good price on a large block of shares in a lightly traded stock, but that's not a problem if a larger company buys us all out – often at a nice premium to market. Dennis Miller: Louis, on behalf of all of my readers, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to teach us about a very important sector. |
| Posted: 22 Mar 2014 11:09 AM PDT Young, older or retired, we're all speculators now. Junior mining stocks might suit... I HAD the.privilege of interviewing Louis James, chief metals & mining investment strategist here at Casey Research, writes Dennis Miller, editor of Miller's Money Forever. Louis is the editor of Casey International Speculator, the first subscription newsletter I ever bought, and I am holding a good number of his recommendations. Personally, I've really been looking forward to this interview, as it sort of brings my own investment journey full circle. Louis is quite the globetrotter, visiting mines all over the world. I am glad we were finally able to corral him long enough to share his expertise with our readers... Dennis Miller: Louis, thanks for taking a few minutes to join us. Louis James: You're very welcome – I'm happy to help. Dennis Miller: I want to start with the big picture before we get into specifics. Most of my readers are on either side of the retirement cusp – making conservative investing paramount – but if 5-10% of your portfolio is in a speculative pick and it doubles, that relieves pressure from the rest of your portfolio. Can you explain how the mining sector and how some of your picks might fit into the speculative portion? Louis James: I've got two answers for that question. First, if Doug Casey is right about the Greater Depression, there is no such thing as a safe investment. You have to remember that at the peak of the crisis in 2008, we were told that checks came within 48 hours of not clearing banks. General Motors filed for bankruptcy. American Airlines filed for bankruptcy. In the post-Lehman Brothers world, absolutely nothing is safe. We are all speculators now. The only difference is whether we recognize that or not, and act accordingly. So while it may seem like the kind of speculation I recommend is too high risk for someone nearing retirement, someone who may not have time to start over again has all the more reason to offset the omnipresent risk with some allocation in high-yield speculations. As Doug says, it's better to risk 10% of your portfolio on high-risk, high-reward speculation than to risk 100% of your portfolio on so-called safe investments that may not even keep up with inflation. Furthermore, if Doug is right about the Greater Depression, even people with considerable assets accumulated may find themselves with liquidity problems and even cash-flow deficits. If, for example, a high-net-worth individual's wealth is tied up in real estate, and the real estate market seizes up, he or she might not be able to liquidate assets, even if that became necessary to replace lost income. In a world where no financial institution of any kind can be relied upon absolutely, even a "solid as bedrock" annuity is vulnerable to some risk. Simply put, no one can afford to rest on their laurels. The second line of reasoning may challenge some of your readers, and may contradict my first point slightly, but not if you consider the long term. Forgive me for being blunt, but I don't know any polite way to put this: no one who is not on death's door should plan on dying any time soon. There are new medical technologies under development now – some quite close to market – that have radical implications for human longevity. Soon it will make no sense to think of anyone who is not over 100 as old. And by the way, I don't just mean surviving hooked to all kinds of machines in a hospital room, but living in better health than we may have now. Sure, misfortunes may befall us before we get to enjoy the benefits of these technologies – I'm not promising eternal life next week. What I am saying is that everyone who is not facing a certain and short life expectancy should plan for the future. And they should not assume that they won't need money after a few more years. Everyone in their 60s should have a financial plan that, at least conceptually, covers the next 50 years. The world will be vastly different in 10 or 15 years, of course, so clearly plans can't be too detailed, but they should exist. People should not assume their financial needs will zero out any time soon. Given these factors, it is more crucial than ever for retirees to use their accumulated capital to generate more capital, and not focus exclusively on protecting the nest egg. They worked hard for their money; now it's time for that money to work hard for them. The best way we've found for money to generate not just a trickle of income but substantial new wealth is to speculate on what we admittedly call "the most volatile stocks on earth": junior resource stocks. Dennis Miller: In the old days, I would fill out retirement planner worksheets that predicted how long my money would last. On the conservative side, if the computer said you were covered until age 120, you were fine. I always figured if I ran out at 119, the hell with it. You're saying 120 years old is a lot more relevant than I thought when I was filling out those worksheets in my 50s. Louis James: Absolutely! No one wants to run out of money at any age, which is why they should always use their capital to generate more capital. Dennis Miller: When we looked at technology stocks, Alex recommended a company that was developing several new medical tests. I got the impression that it was basically doing the research and development, but once the tests were perfected and had the necessary approvals, they would be purchased by a larger company. Are junior mining companies similar? Are they, in effect, like research and development for the mining industry? Louis James: That's a very good analogy. The major mining companies look at the juniors as a source of Other People's Money – we call it "OPM". It's a good symbiosis. The big companies tend to be bureaucratic – and we can't really blame them because they have tens of thousands of employees all around the world. But mineral exploration is a high-risk venture, not very compatible with a bureaucratic mindset. The big companies are happy to buy quality assets that have been studied and de-risked, even if it means paying many times what it cost the junior company to make its discovery. The situation is highly analogous to Alex's technology companies, where the outcome tends to be binary. If a company developing a new drug gets FDA approval, it goes from having nothing but a very expensive dream to having something with a potential multibillion-Dollar market. Similarly, a junior exploration company goes from having nothing but a geologist's dream to having Probable and Proven mining reserves in the ground that even bankers will lend money on. The consequences for shareholders who buy in early can be staggering – life-changing, in fact. Dennis Miller: Why wouldn't a person just invest in a junior mining ETF or something? That would give them real diversification, wouldn't it? Louis James: It would, but it would also put someone else's judgment in charge of the speculation, not their own. Furthermore, when funds take significant positions in small companies that don't trade a lot of shares daily, they face liquidity problems entering and exiting at good prices. An individual investor can often get their orders filled at better prices on both the buy and sell sides, and can take better advantage of market volatility to achieve lower cost bases. Even if the fund includes a big winner, that upside is diluted across the average portfolio performance of every company in the fund. Truth be told, we would never bet on the sector as a whole. Junior mineral companies as a group are a lousy speculation. You have to be able to pick out the diamonds in the rough – speculate only on the best of the best. Many fund managers approach this in a highly quantitative way. They have their spreadsheets, their models, and their parameters. They make their picks based on what fits the numbers they're looking for best. In my experience, this actually does help identify companies selling cheap, but often fails to identify the reasons why a company is selling cheap. Dennis Miller: Earlier we discussed the similarity of junior mining stocks to pharmaceutical stocks. One of the major differences I see in the two sectors is this: If a pharmaceutical stock hits a winner with FDA approval, there will probably be multiple bidders for the patents, regardless of how the sector is performing at the time. But in the case of junior mining stocks, say gold jumps a couple hundred Dollars an ounce: wouldn't your entire sector move in tandem and benefit a lot? Louis James: Yes, that's true about the sector. However, not all companies are equal, nor do they all benefit equally. First, and somewhat ironically, a miner with a very high profit margin benefits proportionally less from an increase in the price of the metal being mined. Say you're a gold miner, producing for $500 an ounce. If gold goes from $1600 to $1700, your profit increases from $1100 to $1200, or less than 10%. But if you're producing for $1500 an ounce, and gold rises by the same amount, your profit increases from $100 to $200 Dollars per ounce, or 100%. That's no reason not to buy a highly profitable producer. You just play things differently if you want to speculate on changes in the price of gold vs. buying a great company. Second, when you speculate on a junior exploration company making a discovery, it doesn't – or shouldn't – make any difference how the price of gold fluctuates. The company has no gold yet; changes in the price of something it has none of should not matter. We don't buy these stocks because we think gold is going up; we buy them because we think their chances of making a significant discovery are excellent. When this happens, they can go from having nothing to having something of great value. The change in value is substantial, and the consequences for shareholders can be spectacular. Successful smaller companies can be bought out by the bigger players in the field, just as with those pharmaceuticals you mentioned. This is actually one of our preferred exit strategies; it can be hard to get a good price on a large block of shares in a lightly traded stock, but that's not a problem if a larger company buys us all out – often at a nice premium to market. Dennis Miller: Louis, on behalf of all of my readers, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to teach us about a very important sector. |
| The Euro Is Not Overvalued Nor Is Any Other Currency Posted: 22 Mar 2014 09:44 AM PDT Frank Hollenbeck writes: A common argument for dumping the Euro is that it is overvalued, and that the ECB (European Central Bank) is unwilling to correct this so-called “problem.” This overvaluation is regularly cited as being over 10 percent against the dollar. The Swiss central bank surrendered control of its money supply by fixing its currency at 1.2 against the Euro essentially on the notion that its currency was “overvalued.” Advocates of a Euro breakup consider that a country with its own currency can then follow an independent monetary policy ensuring a competitive exchange rate. Never mind that neither the USA nor Great Britain have improved by following aggressive monetary policies that have depreciated their currencies. Such policies have also forced other countries, such as Brazil, to retaliate. As Mises foresaw, |
| Posted: 22 Mar 2014 07:21 AM PDT Last night Nick Laird showed me some excellent original data analysis from his site, Sharelynx.com, that demonstrates that a decline in the price of gold during an FOMC week is no sure thing, but more normally distributed. And we have to balance that against a different, and much less statistically robust graph, that was on ZH, and which I also presented here, that clearly showed declines in FOMC weeks, and no similar declines in off weeks, but for a much shorter period of time. |
| Gold And Silver - For Strong Upside Movement Experts Continue To Be Wrong Posted: 22 Mar 2014 07:14 AM PDT From our perspective, the charts reflect the reality of the unreal within the ruling Western elites that continue their financial stranglehold over every Western government, at a minimum, and through their central banks dictating how governments are to rule the governed, aka those enslaved into the system. [We will deal with how charts are the best read, later in the commentary.] Actually, "the system" is an apt way of describing how the Rothschild formula has spread its dominating tentacles into every aspect of everyone's lives. Formula: Control all the money, control the government. Control the government, control the world. This diabolically simple plan has worked right from the outset. Rothschild was an incredibly astute businessman. |
| Posted: 22 Mar 2014 06:51 AM PDT Ted Butler writes: I’ve had some recent conversations with attorneys who were considering class-action lawsuits regarding a gold price manipulation stemming from reports about the London Gold Fix. I told them that while there is no doubt that gold and, particularly, silver are manipulated in price, I didn’t see how the manipulation stemmed from the London Fix. I wished them well and hoped that they may prevail (the enemy of my enemy is my friend), because you never know – if the lawyers dig deep enough they might find the real source of the gold and silver manipulation, namely, the COMEX (owned by the CME Group) and JPMorgan. So I thought it might be constructive to lay out what I thought a successful lawsuit might look like, although I’m speaking as a precious metals analyst and not as a lawyer. I’ll try to put the whole thing into proper perspective, including the premise and scope of the manipulation as well as the parties involved. |
| Gold and Silver Stocks Failed Breakout Marks Interim Top Posted: 22 Mar 2014 06:34 AM PDT Unless you've been living under a rock then you have witnessed the now false breakout in Gold and gold stocks. Our expectation was that the breakout would take Gold to $1420 and the stocks up to their neckline resistance (GDX $30 and GDXJ $51) and then we'd see the first real correction since the December low. Before you send in the hate mail, as some already have, let me remind you that we've emphasized having an exit strategy and last week wrote, "You sit tight until you decide to take profits or something changes." Something clearly changed this week. The breakout was nullified and precious metals will finish this week with a nasty candlestick that implies an interim top. |
| Ted Butler: Suing JPMorgan and Comex for rigging the gold, silver, and copper markets Posted: 22 Mar 2014 01:36 AM PDT 4:35p HKT Saturday, March 22, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Ted Butler, silver market analyst and exposer of market rigging, outlines his theory of a lawsuit against JPMorganChase and CME Group, owner of the New York Commodities Exchange, for rigging the gold, silver, and copper markets. His commentary is headlined "Suing JPMorgan and Comex" and it's posted at GoldSeek's companion Internet site, SilverSeek, here: http://www.silverseek.com/commentary/suing-jpmorgan-and-comex-13038 CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Safe and Private Allocated Bullion Storage In Singapore Given the increasing risks in financial markets, it is more important than ever to own physical bullion coins and bars and to store them in the safest vaults in the world in the safest jurisdictions in the world. Gold advocates Jim Sinclair and Marc Faber have recommended Singapore. Now, with GoldCore, you can own coins and bars in fully insured, segregated, and allocated accounts in Singapore with the ability to take delivery. Learn more by downloading GoldCore's Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore And for more information call Daniel or Sharon at +44 203 0869200 in the United Kingdom or at +1 302 635 1160 in the United States. Or email them at info@goldcore.com. Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Canadian Investor Conference 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: |
| Gold Investors Weekly Review – March 21st Posted: 22 Mar 2014 12:55 AM PDT In his weekly market review, Frank Holmes of the USFunds.com nicely summarizes for gold investors this week's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the gold market. Gold closed the week at $1,334.21, down $48.84 per ounce (3.53%). The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index lost 8.05% on the week. This was the gold investors review of past week. Gold Market StrengthsA recent survey by the Silver Institute shows that 73% of U.S. jewelry retailers reported increased silver sales in 2013. Furthermore, 92% of the retailers said they are optimistic that the current silver demand growth will continue for the next several years. Mineweb reports the Indian government eased import regulations to allow some of the country's private sector banks to buy gold from abroad in a move that could boost gold imports in India and bring down physical premiums considerably. The Reserve Bank of India has allowed five private sector banks to participate in the import programs, as the country seeks to prevent the flow of illicit money and smuggled gold ahead of the primary elections this year. In the platinum group metals space, platinum and palladium have benefitted from platinum strikes in South Africa, as well as the threat of sanctions in Russia, the world's main palladium producer. Standard Bank is seeking to profit from the instability by launching palladium and platinum ETFs to be listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Gold Market WeaknessesGold fell after the Federal Reserve indicated that it will raise interest rates next year. The Fed's tone was deemed as being more hawkish than expected, which contributed to a sharp rise in the dollar. As a result, gold traders turned bearish with a majority of them expecting gold to fall next week. U.S. domestic mine gold production in 2013 has dropped 3 percent, or 128,602 ounces, from the prior year, according to estimates released by the U.S. Geological Survey. Production coming from the states of Nevada (the U.S. gold output leader), Arizona, and California decreased in 2013. A Wall Street Journal article shows European central banks may end a 15-year-old restriction on sales of their gold holdings. Under the agreement, central banks were limited to selling a maximum of 400 tonnes over a five-year period. According to a Bundesbank board member, the agreement may not be extended because over the past five years central bank gold sales have decreased significantly, making the policy unnecessary. Gold Market OpportunitiesOn Thursday, gold recorded a golden cross when the 50-day moving average crossed above the 200-day moving average. A golden cross is traditionally associated with the breaking of a bear market trend and the beginning of a bull market, where the 200-day moving average becomes a support level in the rising market. Our analysis shows that, going back to 2000, a golden cross in gold has been followed on average by a 50 percent rally lasting on average 15 months. David Rosenberg, Gluskin Sheff's Chief Economist, is of the opinion that the Fed appears to be looking at inflation in the rear-view mirror, not through the front window as it should be. Rosenberg agrees that inflation appears benign today; however, the signs of imminent rising inflation cannot be ignored any longer. According to Rosenberg, the National Federation of Independent Business plans to raise selling prices, which has a 70 percent correlation with inflation. In addition, the non-financial commercial paper lending has exploded at a 43 percent annual rate, not a particularly deflationary statistic. As a result, Rosenberg believes we have no "anchor" to hold inflation back. Michael Gray, head of Macquarie Mining Research in Canada, commented on the newfound energy of the gold space in an interview with The Gold Report. According to Gray there are three reasons to believe the sector has turned a corner: (1) few people expected gold prices to rise so quickly into 2014, (2) the environment is fertile for equity deals and M&A transactions, and (3) Goldcorp's bid for Osisko effectively removed an overhang. In addition, Dennis Gartman, one of the most senior and widely-respected newsletter writers, remains bullish on gold, arguing the curtailing of production by senior miners signals the end of the bear market. Gold Market ThreatsGoldman Sachs' head of Commodities Research Jeffrey Currie has reiterated his view that gold will fall to $1,050 by the end of the year, leading numerous analysts and investors to question his conclusions. According to Currie, gold's rally this year has been driven by unsustainable factors, such as the weather-induced slowdown in the U.S., increased geopolitical tensions, and Chinese credit concerns. According to Lawrence Williams, a Mineweb contributor, Currie has avoided any comment related to the continued strength of Asian physical buying and the decided reversal of ETF redemptions, the two most important gold drivers of 2013. As a result of the speculation on Chinese commodity trade financing in copper and iron ore unwinding due to capital tightening, UBS published a report on gold-trade financing. In conversations with market participants, UBS has found evidence that gold is also being used for trade finance, albeit to a small degree. This is because gold has proven harder to use for financing as it is more closely monitored by regulators, and its value makes storage arrangements more complicated and costly. JPMorgan Chase announced the sale of its physical commodities trading unit to the Mercuria Energy Group. The move was announced as Wall Street Banks are moving out of the commodities trading business to avoid tighter scrutiny by regulators who are currently investigating price fixing allegations. Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank have announced similar moves in recent weeks. These transactions, however, are shifting the commodities trading business into the even less regulated market of private companies, at a time when the sector has seen consolidation. The end result likely will be a market with fewer players and less transparency – hardly desirable for commodities producers. |
| The Gold Price Closed Higher $5.50 at $1,336 Posted: 21 Mar 2014 09:59 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1,336.00 Gold Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 1,379.00 Change : -43 or -3.22% Silver Price Close Today : 20.31 Silver Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 21.384 Change : -1.074 or -5.29% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 65.78 Gold Silver Ratio 14-Mar-14 : 64.487 Change : 1.293 or 2.0% Franklin didn't publish commentary today, if he publishes later it will be available here. Y'all enjoy your weekend! Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2014, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold or 18 ounces of silver. or 18 ounces of silver. US $ and US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. |
| As The Dollar Collapses The Next False Flag Falls Into Place Posted: 21 Mar 2014 07:38 PM PDT The unemployment rate for American military is reaching staggering levels. The housing boom is ready to go bust. The Government is rewriting the Bill of Rights to teach future generations that gun registration is part of that the 2nd Amendment. The U.S. promises 54 different countries that the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]] |
| The Gold Price Closed Higher $5.50 at $1,336 Posted: 21 Mar 2014 07:16 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1,336.00 Gold Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 1,379.00 Change : -43 or -3.22% Silver Price Close Today : 20.31 Silver Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 21.384 Change : -1.074 or -5.29% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 65.78 Gold Silver Ratio 14-Mar-14 : 64.487 Change : 1.293 or 2.0% Franklin didn't publish commentary today, if he publishes later it will be available here. Y'all enjoy your weekend! Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2014, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold or 18 ounces of silver. or 18 ounces of silver. US $ and US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. |
| Gold could be Russia's big weapon in financial war Posted: 21 Mar 2014 05:05 PM PDT 8:04a HKT Saturday, March 22, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Russia and China have realized the enormous leverage they have over Western economies, GoldMoney research director Alasdair Macleod writes today, adding that "driving up the gold price is the obvious financial weapon of choice": http://www.goldmoney.com/research/analysis/implications-of-the-ukrainian... In an interview with Lauren Lyster of Yahoo Finance's "Daily Ticker" program, fund manager, geopolitical analyst, and author James G. Rickards elaborates on the alternative gold presents to the U.S. dollar for Russia and China: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/russia-financial-warfare--un... And the London Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports on Europe's vulnerability to energy blackmail by Russia: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10715577/Europe-scram... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Canadian Investor Conference 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata |
| Maguire, von Greyerz, Cashin comment at King World News Posted: 21 Mar 2014 04:30 PM PDT 7:30a HKT Saturday, March 22, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: King World News today has compelling comments from London metals trader Andrew Maguire -- http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/3/21_Ma... -- Swiss gold fund manager Egon von Greyerz -- http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/3/21_Pe... -- and UBS trading executive Art Cashin -- http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/3/21_Th... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Canadian Investor Conference 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2014 04:22 PM PDT Jim, The days of wine and roses might just be coming to a close. The Fed and BIS are losing control of their gold inventories and a day of reckoning is getting ever closer. Andrew has identified a real squeeze point for the flow of gold. CIGA Larry Maguire – An LBMA Default Was Delayed,... Read more » The post Jim’s Mailbox appeared first on Jim Sinclair's Mineset. |
| China gold demand up 29% so far this year, Koos Jansen reports Posted: 21 Mar 2014 04:19 PM PDT 7:20a HKT Saturday, March 22, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: China's gold demand as measured by withdrawals from the Shanghai Gold Exchange is up 29 percent so far this year as compared to last year, China gold market researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen reports today: http://www.ingoldwetrust.ch/chinese-gold-demand-488-mt-ytd-up-29 CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Safe and Private Allocated Bullion Storage In Singapore Given the increasing risks in financial markets, it is more important than ever to own physical bullion coins and bars and to store them in the safest vaults in the world in the safest jurisdictions in the world. Gold advocates Jim Sinclair and Marc Faber have recommended Singapore. Now, with GoldCore, you can own coins and bars in fully insured, segregated, and allocated accounts in Singapore with the ability to take delivery. Learn more by downloading GoldCore's Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore And for more information call Daniel or Sharon at +44 203 0869200 in the United Kingdom or at +1 302 635 1160 in the United States. Or email them at info@goldcore.com. Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Canadian Investor Conference 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: |
| 'Gold Cartel' author Dimitri Speck interviewed by Kitco News Posted: 21 Mar 2014 04:11 PM PDT 7:10a HKT Saturday, March 22, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Gold market researcher, fund manager, author, and GATA consultant Dimitri Speck was interviewed Friday by Daniella Cambone of Kitco News about manipulation of the gold market, describing the research done for his book "The Gold Cartel" -- http://us.macmillan.com/thegoldcartel/DimitriSpeck -- and expressing his belief that gold eventually will defeat the price suppression engineered by Western central banks. The interview is seven minutes long and can be viewed at Kitco News here: http://www.kitco.com/news/video/show/on-the-spot/617/2014-03-21/Gold-Can... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Canadian Investor Conference 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata |
| Economic Collapse 2014 -- Fed Prints TRILLIONS to Fight CURRENCY WAR Posted: 21 Mar 2014 04:00 PM PDT The Fed has been able to keep the banks alive with its money printing scheme. This has done NOTHING for the real citizen. In fact, the average citizen is worse off now than prior to the Financial Crisis. The Fed is beginning to pull the crutch on this system and at the same time wondering why the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]] |
| Ted Butler: Suing JPMorgan and the COMEX Posted: 21 Mar 2014 02:24 PM PDT I've had some recent conversations with attorneys who were considering class-action lawsuits regarding a gold price manipulation stemming from reports about the London Gold Fix. I told them that while there is no doubt that gold and, particularly, silver are manipulated in price, I didn't see how the manipulation stemmed from the London Fix. I wished them well and hoped that they may prevail (the enemy of my enemy is my friend), because you never know – if the lawyers dig deep enough they might find the real source of the gold and silver manipulation, namely, the COMEX (owned by the CME Group) and JPMorgan. So I thought it might be constructive to lay out what I thought a successful lawsuit might look like, although I'm speaking as a precious metals analyst and not as a lawyer. I'll try to put the whole thing into proper perspective, including the premise and scope of the manipulation as well as the parties involved. The first thing I should mention is how unprecedented it is that I'm writing this in the first place. Here I am, directly and consistently accusing two of the world's most important financial institutions of market manipulation (making sure I send each all my accusations) and I have received no complaint from either. I don't think that has ever occurred previously. Now I am taking it one step further; presenting a guide for how and why JPMorgan and the CME should be sued for their manipulation of gold and silver (and copper, too). Let me explain why I am doing this. I am still certain that the coming physical silver shortage will end the price manipulation, but I see nothing wrong with trying to hasten that day. Over the past quarter century, I petitioned the regulators incessantly to end the manipulation, but the CFTC refused to do so. Far from regretting my past efforts, I feel it has greatly advanced and legitimized the allegations of manipulation. After 25 years, however, one must recognize that the horse being beaten is dead and that the CFTC will never act. So, instead of simply waiting for the silver shortage to end the manipulation, I thought it advisable to try a new approach that was completely compatible with the real silver story to date. Since I (we) couldn't get the CFTC to do its job and end the manipulation; why not try a different approach? The truth is that I have long believed that the right civil lawsuit stood a good chance at ending the manipulation before a silver shortage hit. I had high hopes initially that the class-action suit that was filed against JPMorgan for manipulating the price of silver a few years ago might succeed; but it seemed to drift off track and I wasn't particularly surprised that it was ultimately dismissed. My intent should be clear – I want to see the next lawsuit succeed. The stakes in a COMEX silver/gold/copper manipulation lawsuit are staggering. Not only is market manipulation the most serious market crime possible, the markets that have been manipulated and the number of those injured are enormous. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that any finding that JPMorgan and the COMEX did manipulate prices as I contend could very well result in the highest damage awards in history. That's no small thing considering the tens of billions of dollars that JPMorgan has coughed up recently for infractions in just about every line of their business. My point is that no legal case could be potentially more lucrative or attention getting than this one. Certainly, this also includes the pitfall that JPMorgan and the CME are legal powerhouses who are not likely to roll over easily. Because the silver manipulation has lasted so long and damaged so many, the stakes away from any monetary finding are staggering. It is no real stretch to suggest, with or without eventual criminal findings, the reputational and regulatory repercussions (from other countries) could threaten the existence of each institution in current form (or at least management). What is the theory or premise of the legal case for market manipulation against JPMorgan and the CME? The COMEX has evolved into a trading structure that has allowed speculators to control and dictate the price of world commodities, like gold, silver and copper, with no input from the world's real producers, consumers and investors in these metals. The CME has allowed and encouraged this development for the sole purpose of increasing trading fee income. Not only do the world's real metal producers, consumers and investors have no effective input into the price discovery process on the COMEX; because the COMEX is the leading metals price setter in the world, real producers, consumers and investors are forced to accept prices that are dictated to them by speculators on the exchange. Because so few of the world's real producers, consumers and investors deal on the COMEX, the exchange has developed into a "bucket shop" or a private betting parlor exclusively comprised of speculators. Again, this is an intentional development as much more trading volume is generated by speculative High Frequency Trading (HFT) than by legitimate hedgers (like miners) transferring risk to speculators. Legitimate hedgers don't day trade. It is no exaggeration to say that the COMEX has been captured by speculators and abandoned by legitimate hedgers. In turn, JPMorgan has developed into the "King Rat" in the speculative bucket shop by virtue of its consistent market corners in COMEX gold, silver and copper futures. The COMEX market structure was already rotten when JPMorgan blasted onto the scene in March 2008 when the bank acquired Bear Stearns' short market corners in gold and silver. Incredibly, the regulators engineered the Bear Stearns rescue, granting to JPMorgan a listed market control in addition to the OTC market share control that JPM held for years. Talk about a powerful manipulative combo – JPMorgan and the COMEX. Perhaps the most compelling aspect of my premise for a legal case against the CME and JPMorgan for market manipulation is that it is based exclusively on public data available from the CFTC in the form of the agency's weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) and monthly Bank Participation Reports. There is additional proof of JPM's controlling market share in the Treasury Department's OCC OTC Derivatives Report (please see my public comment to the Federal Reserve at the end of this piece). The CFTC data may seem somewhat complex at first, but there can be little question as to its general accuracy and government pedigree. In fact, the data is compiled from exchange information transmitted to the CFTC, so the CME can't deny its accuracy. There's no he said/she said or ambiguity in these data series. In short, it is type of data that will hold up in a court of law. According to the CFTC's data, there are two primary groups of speculators setting prices on the COMEX. One group are the technical funds, traders that buy and sell strictly on price movement. Also referred to as trend followers and momentum traders, the technical funds buy and continue to buy futures contracts as prices climb; and sell and continue to sell, including short sales, as prices fall until prices subsequently reverse. These traders are included in the Managed Money category of the disaggregated version of the COT report, primarily because they are investment funds trading on behalf of outside investors, also known as registered Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA's). One thing that can be said for certain about these technical funds is that they are pure speculators, as there is no mining company or user of metal in this category by CFTC and CME definition. By itself, there is nothing wrong with that as regulated futures exchanges need speculators to take the other side of the transaction when legitimate hedgers wish to lay off price risk in the normal course of their underlying business. This is the economic justification for why congress had authorized futures trading originally. The problem is that there are few, if any, legitimate hedgers involved on the COMEX nowadays; only other speculators that are falsely categorized as legitimate producers and consumers. The second group of speculators are primarily categorized as commercials, mostly in the Producer/Merchant/Processor/User category, but also in the Swap Dealers category. Since these terms are quite specific and strongly suggest that only legitimate hedgers are included, most people automatically assume the traders in these commercial categories are just that – hedgers. But that is not the case, as most of the traders in these two categories are banks, led by JPMorgan, pretending to be hedging, but which are, in reality, trading on a proprietary basis strictly for profit. Simply put, JPMorgan and other collusive COMEX traders are just pretending to be commercially engaged in COMEX trading in gold, silver and copper when, in reality, they are nothing more than hedge funds in drag. http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/DisaggregatedExplanatoryNotes/index.htm The lynchpin of any legal case against JPMorgan and the CME revolves around whether the traders in the commercial categories of the COT report are, in fact, hedging or simply speculating, as are the technical funds. The CME and JPMorgan will go to the ends of the earth to show that the commercials are hedging, not speculating and will hide behind the twin concepts that the commercials are either trading on behalf of clients or are actively involved in market making and are thereby providing much needed liquidity. It will sound legitimate if you believe in make believe stories instead of facts. JPMorgan has a history of proclaiming it is hedging when confronted with an unnecessarily large speculative position. The first thing the bank declared when the London Whale debacle surfaced was that it was part of a hedge against the bank's portfolio. But that was openly scoffed at and quickly discarded as an excuse. JPM is likely to trot out the hedging or market making justification, but any competent attorney will blow that away. No one (openly or legitimately) granted JPMorgan the right to maintain market corners in COMEX gold and silver. In December 2012, JPMorgan held market shares on the short side of COMEX gold and silver that amounted to 20% and 35% of the net open interest in each market respectively. It is not possible that a reasonable person would not consider those market shares in an active regulated futures market to constitute market corners. After rigging prices lower by historical amounts in 2013, JPMorgan flipped its short market corner in COMEX gold to a long market corner of as much as 25% and reduced its short market corner in COMEX silver to under 15% from 35%, pocketing more than $3 billion in illicit profits. I'd like to see JPMorgan explain some connection to hedging with regards to its position change. Undoubtedly, JPMorgan will claim it was "making markets" to explain away its huge position shifts in COMEX gold and silver (and copper), proclaiming it was always a buyer on the downside and a seller on the upside of prices. True enough, but far from being the market hero it will pretend to be, a closer examination will reveal something else entirely. The purpose of market making is to provide market liquidity and price stability. Legitimate traders are given some leeway from regulations limiting speculative positions and market shares from growing too large in order to enhance liquidity and price stability which benefits everyone. But the record clearly indicates that JPMorgan, in cahoots with the CME, has used its dominant market shares in COMEX gold, silver and copper to instead engage in an evil form of market making whose intent is to constrict liquidity and create disorderly pricing. What record indicates that? The price record. Twice in 2011, the price of silver fell more than 30% ($15) in a matter of days and last year gold fell $200 and silver by $5 in two days. These price declines were unprecedented, had no legitimate supply/demand explanation and the regulators, including the CME did or said anything. For sure, JPMorgan was a buyer on those deliberate price smashes and every other COMEX gold, silver and copper price smash for the past six years, but how does that make them a hero? This crooked bank and the CME and others arranged every COMEX price smash in order to create chaos, drain liquidity and disrupt pricing; the exact opposite of what legitimate market making is supposed to be. JPMorgan and the CME violated public trust in our markets as proven by the price record. For that, they should be made to pay dearly. The key question is how did (and does) JPMorgan and the CME pull this off repeatedly? It all has to do with market mechanics, of which JPM and the CME are absolute masters. Since there are, essentially, two separate and competing speculative groups setting prices on the COMEX, it comes down one group scamming the other. (I know this is old hat to subscribers, but please remember I'm writing this to convince the right attorney to take on these crooks). So how does JPM get positioned to profit from a price smash (or price rise) and then rig prices to go in their direction? Basically, by scamming the technical funds by getting those funds to do what is profitable for JPMorgan and other collusive commercial traders and including the CME in the form of extraordinarily large trading volume. How the heck does JPMorgan and the CME pull that off? They can pull it off because they know how the technical funds operate and because JPM and the CME also know how to cause the funds to buy and sell when JPM wants them to buy and sell. Since the technical funds only buy as prices are rising and only sell as prices are falling, particularly when prices penetrate key moving averages, all JPMorgan and the other collusive commercials have to do is occasionally set prices above and below those key moving averages. And thanks to an array of dirty trading tricks developed over the past 30 years, the most recent being HFT, JPMorgan can set short term prices wherever it chooses, whenever it desires. In a very real sense, JPMorgan and other collusive COMEX commercials have become the puppet masters controlling the technical funds' movements. It is an exquisite racket – JPMorgan gets the technical funds to buy or sell in order to take the other side of the transaction as counterparties. This can be seen in almost every price move in COMEX gold, silver and copper over the years. Let me try to present the data in graphic form, courtesy of some charts by my Aussie friend, Nick Laird of sharelynx.com. Depicted below are the three main metals of the COMEX, gold, silver and copper and the net positions of the traders in the managed money category – the technical funds over the past couple of years. If you plot when the technical funds buy or sell, there is almost a 100% correlation to price. In other words, when the technical funds buy, prices for gold, silver and copper rise and when the technical funds sell, prices fall. The correlation is almost uncanny, to the point where some pundits have recently claimed that it is the technical funds, not the commercials, which are manipulating prices. But those claims melt away once one considers the nature of this bucket shop fraud.
Sure, the technical funds move prices when they buy and sell, but that's just what JPMorgan and the CME count on. If the technical funds weren't mechanical and predictable there would be no scam possible. It is only because the technical funds can be counted on to do the same thing repetitively that allows JPMorgan and other collusive commercials to take counterparty positions. If the technical funds weren't predictable, JPMorgan would never have made $3 billion+ last year in COMEX gold and silver and been able to flip a short market corner in COMEX gold to a long market corner. Or just ask yourself – why would the technical funds collude to harm themselves? I also feel it is significant that I can now include copper in the JPMorgan/CME illicit scheme to manipulate. This broadens the manipulation in a systemically important way. If ever there was a case for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), this must be it. In one recent attorney conversation, I was asked to provide the name of a technical fund that was duped as I described and would like to seek legal redress. If I could have, I would have, but I don't think that's possible. It's another reason I refer to this COMEX manipulation as almost the perfect crime. In this case, any technical fund would not likely seek redress as a victim (certainly not as the initiator of legal action) because to do so would involve having to admit being the mark at a crooked poker game, something not conducive to attracting additional investor funds. In fact, it would invalidate a technical fund's core business and be tantamount to simply quitting a business that may have been in existence for decades. It just isn't going to happen. But that hardly matters because the nature of market manipulation means there are untold numbers of other victims, particularly considering the scope of the gold, silver and copper markets. Whereas the technical funds were both the enablers and sometimes victims of the scam I described above, there are many thousands of legitimate victims (including me and many of you) who did nothing to enable the scam. I dare say that there are more potential victims of the JPMorgan/COMEX gold, silver and copper manipulations than in just about any previous financial fraud. Let's face it, there is hardly a mining company or investor in gold and silver or mining company shares that hasn't been damaged over the past six years to some extent. That's when JPMorgan came to dominate COMEX trading. If a legitimate class-action lawsuit was initiated, I believe potential litigants would emerge in massive numbers. Then again, there's only one way to find out for sure and that's to have such a case filed. On a number of occasions in the past, when there was still some slim hope that the CFTC might address the ongoing silver manipulation, I publicly requested that you should submit public comments on issues related to position limits. By my count, upwards of 10,000 comments were submitted collectively, for which I offered my profuse thanks. Unfortunately, because the agency appeared to be compromised on the issue, no real good came from it through no fault of our own. Therefore, I would hardly ask anyone to do that again. But I was reminded by a subscriber that I should submit a comment in regard to the Federal Reserve's open public comment period seeking input on whether banks should be allowed to deal in physical commodities and derivatives on such commodities. I had mentioned in a previous article that I was undecided whether to do so or not. The subscriber convinced me that it was the right thing to do in order to go on the record, to which I had to agree. I understand the comment period has been extended to April 14, for anyone wishing to submit comments for the record. There have been less than 80 comments posted thru today and mine are near the bottom http://www.federalreserve.gov/apps/foia/ViewAllComments.aspx?doc_id=R-1479&doc_ver=1 |
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Hunger Games Posted: 21 Mar 2014 01:30 PM PDT |
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Hunger Games Posted: 21 Mar 2014 01:30 PM PDT |
| Gold Seeker Weekly Wrap-Up: Gold and Silver Fall Over 3% and 5% on the Week Posted: 21 Mar 2014 01:22 PM PDT Gold climbed $15.27 to $1342.27 at about 7AM EST before it fell back off in New York, but it still ended with a gain of 0.44%. Silver rose to as high as $20.579 at one point, but it then fell back off and ended unchanged on the day. |
| Jim Rickards & Mike Maloney: Gold Revaluation & THE DEATH OF MONEY Posted: 21 Mar 2014 12:34 PM PDT Jim Rickards has been featured in 4 out of the 5 episodes that we have released so far in the 'Hidden Secrets Of Money' series - and for good reason. Jim is one of the most articulate thinkers and teachers in the world when it comes to explaining what is really happening in the world of economics... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]] |
| COT Gold, Silver and US Dollar Index Report - March 21, 2014 Posted: 21 Mar 2014 12:32 PM PDT COT Gold, Silver and US Dollar Index Report - March 21, 2014 |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2014 11:39 AM PDT My Dear Friends, Yesterday, Thursday the 20th, the Obama Administration stepped up the sanctions against Russia over Crimea. The sanctions still focus on selected banks and targets in terms of people. This is a very dangerous "tit for tat" approach. An eye for an eye only ends up with a blind world. The dollar reacted... Read more » The post Going Tit For Tat With Russia appeared first on Jim Sinclair's Mineset. |
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It was pretty quiet in gold in Far East trading on their Friday, as it rose and fell about five bucks between the Tokyo open and up until 30 minutes after the London open. At that point, the gold price took off to the upside, only to be met with a firestorm of selling by the sellers of last resort.
It’s amazing to me how many people in our modern world live in massive denial. Try explaining to someone steeped in mainstream news that the United States could face a massive economic collapse. They are likely to laugh at you. I guess this denial is a direct result of having too much prosperity – you just think it will always be like that.
Last night Nick Laird showed me some excellent original data analysis from his site, Sharelynx.com, that demonstrates that a decline in the price of gold during an FOMC week is no sure thing, but more normally distributed. And we have to balance that against a different, and much less statistically robust graph, that was on ZH, and which I also presented here, that clearly showed declines in FOMC weeks, and no similar declines in off weeks, but for a much shorter period of time.
My friend Nick at 
































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