Gold World News Flash |
- JSMineset Gold Is Now Live! No PayPal Account Required
- New Zealand’s Surprise Interest Rate Cut Highlights Concern Of A Global Currency War
- Gold, the Misery Index, and Insanity
- Goldman is Dead Wrong on Demise of Gold
- Bee Populations See Improvement after Three Toxic Herbicides are Banned from their Environment
- India's finance mininster can't persuade his own wife to paperize her gold jewellery
- What The Silver/Gold Ratio Tells Us – The Beginning of Something Big
- Craig Hemke interviews GATA Chairman Murphy for Sprott Money News
- The FED Central Bank Is Losing Control Of The Economy As More Indicators Point To A Collapse
- Barrick BANKING Criticized For Executive Pay
- The Rally You NEVER SELL!
- These Energy Companies Are Most At Risk From The "Spring Redetermination"
- Saudis To "Modernize" Economy As Interbank Rates Surge & Money Supply Collapses At Record Pace
- Gold Price Closed at $1220.10 Down $1 or -0.08%
- Michael Savage Donald Trump Interview - March 28, 2016
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Very Quiet Trade after Overnight Flash Crash
- Unprecedented Central Bank Policies Call for a “Barbell Strategy”
- The Debt Piles Up
- Time to Sell the Family Home?
- The Day the Wheels came Off
- Goldman is Dead Wrong on Gold
- Confirmation That All is Not Well
- Please, Hand me a Bottle of Tylenol!
- The Professional Class is Burning Out
- It’s Data Week
- What has happened to Black Gold? | Maarten van Mourik
- Chinese investors see golden opportunity
- What has happened to Black Gold? | Maarten van Mourik
- The Economist acknowledges 'financial repression' -- at a safe distance from London
- Marc Faber: Gold Still Most Desirable Currency in Wake of Brussels Attack
- Panic?
- Gold: The "First Wave" in a 40-Year Cycle
- China Economy Soft Landing or Bust? SSEC Stock Market Analysis
| JSMineset Gold Is Now Live! No PayPal Account Required Posted: 29 Mar 2016 12:12 AM PDT Dear CIGAs, JSMineset Gold is now live! Click the yellow banner on the top right to sign up. $119.00/year will get you exclusive access to Bill Holter's up to the minute articles, Q&A videos from Jim and Bill, and a number of other postings only available on JSMineset Gold. You also won't have to view... Read more » The post JSMineset Gold Is Now Live! No PayPal Account Required appeared first on Jim Sinclair's Mineset. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Zealand’s Surprise Interest Rate Cut Highlights Concern Of A Global Currency War Posted: 29 Mar 2016 12:00 AM PDT On Wednesday March 9th the Reserve Bank of New Zealand announced a surprise cut in New Zealand’s benchmark interest rate by 25bps to 2.25%. That is the fifth rate cut by the RBNZ since June in the hope to spur economic growth and to boost exports by weakening the New Zealand dollar. This is a historic low for New Zealand’s interest rate. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold, the Misery Index, and Insanity Posted: 28 Mar 2016 11:46 PM PDT In 1980 Ronald Reagan spoke about the Misery Index. An economist had added the inflation rate to the unemployment rate, called it the Misery Index, and used it to indicate the social costs and economic difficulty for the middle class. Today the Misery Index is much smaller than in 1980, thanks to … intelligent fiscal management, economically beneficial monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, and wise political policy from the White House. If you believe any of those, read no further. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Goldman is Dead Wrong on Demise of Gold Posted: 28 Mar 2016 11:42 PM PDT Goldman Sachs has been predicting the demise of gold for the past few years. Back in July of 2015, Jeff Currie (Global Head of Commodities Research at the investment firm) went on record predicting the price of the yellow metal would fall below $1,000 per ounce by the start of 2016. However, that prediction failed to materialize; despite the fact that gold was already below $1,100 at the time he made the call. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bee Populations See Improvement after Three Toxic Herbicides are Banned from their Environment Posted: 28 Mar 2016 11:30 PM PDT by L.J. Devon, Natural News:
To make matters worse, agricultural systems in the past century have moved away from utilizing integrated pest management strategies, and have abandoned working with the natural defense mechanisms that are already inherent in crops. Agricultural systems today rely heavily on spraying tons of toxic synthetic pesticides, insecticides and herbicides, which in turn dramatically shift the livelihood and dynamics of the ecosystem. These chemical-dependent agricultural systems have put great strain on pollinators, weakening the insects’ immune systems, and confusing their natural patterns of pollination. Honey bees are becoming so confused, that a large percentage of individual colonies don’t even return to their hives. Sometimes they do return, only to die in the hives. The chemicals they must endure as they pollinate are slowly taking their colonies down.
Neonicotinoids confuse honey bees, leading to colony collapseHoney bee colonies were dying off so fast in Europe that something major had to be done. In 2013, the European Commission went after three of the most destructive, widely-used neonicotinoid pesticides. The European regulatory authority banned clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam in 2013, as scientists anxiously waited to see if there would be improvements in honey bee colony health. Neonicotinoids are systemic pesticides that get taken up by the plant. The chemical is then transported to all the tissues of the plant, including the leaves, flowers, pollen and nectar. As retired USDA apiculturist McGregor pointed out in his paper, “Another value of pollination lies in its effect on quality and efficiency of crop production.” Pointing to insights in earlier texts, McGregor warned, “Inadequate pollination can result not only in reduced yields but also in delayed yield and a high percentage of culls or inferior fruits. In this connection, Gates (1917) warned the grower that, … ‘without his pollinating agents, chief among which are the honey bees, to transfer the pollen from the stamens to the pistil of the blooms, his crop may fail.'” Today, the European Academies Science Advisory Council couldn’t agree more. The independent body, composed of representatives from the national science academies of European Union member states, has indisputable evidence that herbicides are eliciting “severe effects on a range of organisms that provide ecosystem services like pollination and natural pest control, as well as on biodiversity.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| India's finance mininster can't persuade his own wife to paperize her gold jewellery Posted: 28 Mar 2016 11:10 PM PDT Gold Monetisation Scheme Bows to Family Homilies By Timsy Jaipuria There is a conflict between two finance ministers, and it seems the official one is not winning this war. The country's finance minister announced a scheme to monetise the gold holdings of India's families, but the finance minister back at home, the housewife, is having none of it. This came through clearly at a recent meeting between economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das and representatives from the Reserve Bank of India, temple trusts, and other bodies to discuss ways to make the scheme more attractive. "I am not even able to convince my wife to part with her jewellery, which she hardly uses," one official reportedly said at the meeting, raising laughter. "It's easy to convince North Block [one of the Indian government headquarters buildings in New Delhi] but very difficult to convince the finance minister at home to participate in this scheme." ... ... For the remainder of the report: http://www.hindustantimes.com/business/gold-monetisation-scheme-bows-to-... ADVERTISEMENT Direct Ownership and Storage of Precious Metals Goldbroker.com is a precious metals investment company that enables investors to own and store gold directly in their own name (no mutualized ownership) in Zurich and Singapore. Goldbroker's clients are not exposed to any counterparty risks. They own gold and silver in their own names (the ownership certificate cites the name of the investor and serial number of his bars) and they have storage accounts opened in their own name as well. So Goldbroker.com's storage partner knows the exact identity of each investor. Goldbroker.com doesn't store in the name of its clients; rather, Goldbroker's clients store personally. All investors have direct access to their gold and silver bars. Goldbroker.com was launched in 2011 so that investors would avoid any counterparty risk when investing in physical gold and silver. Goldbroker.com is listed among GATA's recommended monetary metals dealers: To invest or learn more, please visit: Join GATA here: Mines and Money Asia http://asia.minesandmoney.com/ Mining Investment Asia http://www.mininginvestmentasia.com/ Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of GATA's London conference in August 2011 or GATA's Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html 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: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What The Silver/Gold Ratio Tells Us – The Beginning of Something Big Posted: 28 Mar 2016 11:00 PM PDT from World Alternative Media: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Craig Hemke interviews GATA Chairman Murphy for Sprott Money News Posted: 28 Mar 2016 10:46 PM PDT 12:44p ICT Tuesday, March 29, 2016 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: GATA Chairman Bill Murphy was interviewed this week for Sprott Money News by the TF Metals Report's Craig Hemke (aka Turd Ferguson), discussing, among other things, the long failure to audit the U.S. gold reserve, Canada's liquidation of its gold reserve, whether there is any jurisdiction where private investors can store gold safely, how much gold remains available to central banks for price suppression, and the control of the gold and silver futures markets by bullion banks whose trading is underwritten by central banks. The interview is 18 minutes long and can be heard at the Sprott Money Internet site here: https://www.sprottmoney.com/blog/ask-the-expert-bill-murphy-march-2016.h... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Silver Coins and Rounds with Employee Pricing and Free Shipping Grab your Silver Starter Kit at cost from Money Metals Exchange, the company named "Precious Metals Dealer of the Year" by industry ratings group Bullion Directory. Simply go to MoneyMetals.com and type "GATA" in the radio box at the top of the page. This special silver offer contains 4 ounces of silver coins and rounds in the most popular 1-ounce, half-ounce, and 10th-ounce forms. Claim yours now, because GATA readers get employee pricing and free shipping. So go to -- -- and type "GATA" in the radio box at the top of the page. Join GATA here: Mines and Money Asia http://asia.minesandmoney.com/ Mining Investment Asia http://www.mininginvestmentasia.com/ Support GATA by purchasing recordings of the proceedings of the 2014 New Orleans Investment Conference: https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/2014-av-powell Or by purchasing DVDs of GATA's London conference in August 2011 or GATA's Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html 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: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The FED Central Bank Is Losing Control Of The Economy As More Indicators Point To A Collapse Posted: 28 Mar 2016 08:55 PM PDT from X22 Report: Episode 930a | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Barrick BANKING Criticized For Executive Pay Posted: 28 Mar 2016 08:00 PM PDT by Jeff Nielson, Bullion Bulls:
Here is a very good example of precisely how/why the world’s largest ‘gold miners’ are rotten to the core. As anyone knows who follows the miners, Barrick ‘Gold’ (which is primarily a copper producer) has been in a long nose-dive, as some of its past dirty laundry has begun to catch up to it. SGT Report interview: scandal with Barrick Gold? Most notable is the company’s massive fraud surrounding the Pascua Lama project. Older readers/viewers have heard a lot about that previously, now it is facing a class-action lawsuit from its shareholders over this fraud. It is in this environment where we learn that Barrick has been handing out large BONUSES to its senior executives. Bonuses” for what? Seeing how fast some sleazy bankers can DESTROY “the world’s largest gold miner”? And this brings us to whois getting paid these bonuses at Barrick Banking. Barrick Gold Corp. awarded Executive Chairman John Thornton $3.08 million in total compensation, 76 percent less than last year, after he gave up his bonus in the wake of investor criticism of pay packages at the world's largest gold producer. Thornton, 62, received a salary of $2.5 million, $204,090 in other compensation and a pension value of $375,000, the Toronto-based miner said Thursday in a regulatory filing. Thornton forfeited $3.4 million of incentives for the year, the company said. The compensation compares with $12.9 million in 2014, which included $9.5 million of incentive pay. Thornton "elected to forfeit all of the incentive compensation earned for 2015 in order to better reflect the experience of our shareholders last year," Barrick said in the filing. Barrick's compensation and governance came under scrutiny after the company revealed in 2013 that Thornton, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. president, received an $11.9 million signing bonus… This is the epitome of corporate corruption, and not surprisingly, a Goldman Sachs Stooge is right in the middle. Here we have a goldmining company, trying to turn around its gold production, as its revenues and bottom-line are in free-fall, and what does it do? It writes a great big cheque to bring in a Banker (and not just any banker, but a bona fide Goldman Sachs Stooge), and then gives this banker large “bonuses” — for helping the company to lose money, and get sued by its own shareholders. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Mar 2016 07:01 PM PDT by Bill Holter, JS Mineset, SGT Report.com:
We all know the system as a whole has hit “debt saturation” levels where even sovereign treasuries and central banks have been stretched. It is no longer just about the banks or financial institutions, the danger is now risen to the level of “countries”. Please remember, the 2008 episode was aborted (saved) ONLY because sovereign treasuries and in particular central banks stepped in and flooded the world with liquidity. Since we now have negative rates permeating the financial world, it tells us central banks are approaching their greatest fear of “pushing on a string”.
When looking at the real economy, we know from simple deduction and first hand views that the global economy is at best stagnant and most probably shrinking (especially if you look at trade numbers). We also know this stagnation or decline is occurring AFTER eight years of total monetary and fiscal ease. Call what has happened a period of “helicopter money” if you will because it is exactly what they’ve done …yet we now run again into tightening liquidity conditions. What do the above two paragraphs have to do with “the rally you never sell”? They both lay the groundwork or foundation for our final conclusion! The thought process has gone like this; the central banks have got the market’s back and they will be able to tighten once “escape velocity” is reached …tightening will ultimately be bad for gold and silver. That was the theory, the reality is quite different! As we have suggested all along, “printing” currency has never worked throughout history and would not work this time. Here we are with proof positive of a failed experiment, negative interest rates are your proof! With the above as groundwork, if we saw gold move up to $1,700 and Silver up to $30 next month …why shouldn’t we take some profit and wait for a pullback? Remember we spoke of “when and how” early on. “When” do you sell and “how” (or why) did the rally occur to start you thinking of taking profits? I would submit that “what” is the most important question. What will you sell your gold for? Please do not confuse “what” in this question with “why would you sell your gold?”. Our question of “what” means for what will you trade your gold? For dollars? For euros, yen, pounds or any other currency? Do you see where this is going? I know many people made gold purchases “to make money”, in reality this is a horribly wrong thought process! Since 2008 I have told people they should purchase gold or silver as a way to get OUT OF DOLLARS …as a way to get capital OUT OF THE SYSTEM. Why in the world would you wake up one day with gold over $2,000 an ounce and “deposit” your capital back into they system? When writing “what” will you trade your gold for it was meant literally. Will you trade for currencies of countries that are already known to be mathematically bankrupt? Before wrapping this up we need to look at one more area that is taken for granted but certainly should not be. The area is “contacts” specifically and the rule of law in general. Let’s look at banking first. It used to be you deposited YOUR money INTO the bank, this has all changed. Now when you “deposit” money you are LENDING it to the bank and (bail in) legislation has already been written into law. Another area of course would be all the “paper” gold outstanding that can never perform. We already know that mathematically there are well over 100 ounces (over 300 on COMEX) of gold contractually obligated for every one real ounce available to deliver. I would ask you this, would you bet your net worth on a game of musical chairs with more than 100 contestants but only one chair??? Of course you wouldn’t so why would consider an ETF or any other “promise” in lieu of real metal? To finish, we believe this IS the rally in gold that should never be sold until there is some sort of currency with real backing that can be trusted. Only then can you trade your gold, when you can receive in return a trustworthy currency. This is all about credit seizing up and a systemic change occurring. The two biggest bears on gold, Harry Dent and Martin Armstrong say this almost exactly but come to the conclusion gold will collapse in price. This is simply laughable. Dent calls for credit collapse yet he believes the biggest debtor on the planet (the U.S.) will thrive …and the IOU’s from this deadbeat debtor will soar in value. Armstrong believes we face a societal collapse and possibly governmental collapse. Would you rather have gold buried in your back yard or electronic digits held in a banking institution where (bail in) legislation already exists to steal your balance? Armstrong makes no sense whatsoever when he says the IOU’s (dollars in this case) of any collapsed government can appreciate in value versus gold or silver. A good illustration might be how many Confederate dollars does it take to purchase one ounce of gold today? No Ponzi scheme can unwind slowly. When the current Ponzi scheme breaks you will have NO WARNING whatsoever. In our opinion, it will be completely over within 48 hours and the markets will be locked up and you “locked in” to whatever you have … and “locked out” of whatever you don’t have but would like to! Technical analysis will be worthless and of no help. In a world where ALL ASSETS are nothing more than promises, gold and silver will do what have for 5,000 years. They promise nothing as they need not promise anything but what they ARE, MONEY. REAL MONEY that will have real value when the current credit system collapses and greater real value whenever a new system gets up and running! On a separate note, many of you know I have partnered with Jim Sinclair and had planned a “premium” site. Our site is now live as of today and can be found at JSMineset Gold Is Now Live! :: Jim Sinclair’s Mineset . My work will largely in the future only be found through subscription though I will post one or two “public” articles per month. In addition Jim and I plan to “interview” each other once or twice per month and also interview a special guest once per month. If you have enjoyed and or learned via my writings in the past, please consider subscribing to continue following my work! Standing watch, Bill Holter | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| These Energy Companies Are Most At Risk From The "Spring Redetermination" Posted: 28 Mar 2016 06:48 PM PDT In late September, during the peak of fall borrowing base redetermination , many oil and gas companies got their first glimpse of just how bad their liquidity would get when as a result of collapsing commodity prices, the value of their collateral crashed when PV-10s plunged by up to 80% Y/Y as of December 2015...
... and resulted in plunging access to secured liquidity as borrowings bases were eviscerated as much as 38% (for those unfamiliar with the basics of the semiannual redetermination process, the WSJ has a handy and brief 101).
Incidentally, it would have been far worse if the Dallas Fed and OCC had not stepped in and told lender banks to take it as easy on the debtors as possible, and in some cases, even suspend market-based calculations for price decks. The reason for this kid glove treatment was that many banks were unprepared to reserve and write down the value of their energy loans down to fair values as of the fall. Now, six months later, neither the OCC nor the (Dallas) Fed will be quite as generous and demand that banks act as a benevolent cartel. In fact, from what we have heard, it will be quite the opposite which explains the urgent scramble by many banks to force their debtor clients to issue equity and use the proceeds to repay secured loans. As such, the imminent spring redetermination may prove to be just the catalyst to push the recently latent energy crisis to the next level. So which companies are most at risk of a suddenly air pocket in liquidity? For the answer we go to a recent Bloomberg Intelligence slide deck prepared precisely for the purpose of showcasing the companies with maxed out credit lines. These are as follows:
However, while these companies certainly have pulled the short stick, ironically they may not be the first to go: after all, at least they had the foresight of using up their entire available revolvers (and in the odd case of PostRock, more than 100% of it) - it doesn't matter if now the banks decide to collapse their borrowing base - the funds have already been wired and good luck getting a refund. No, the companies most at risk may actually be those with that currently have some of the most highly utilized borrowing bases, ranging anywhere from 62% for Contango to 94% for Vanguard. It is these companies that will suddenly find themselves with zero incremental sources of liquidity as the banks proceed to whack anywhere from 30 to 50% of their borrowing base, leaving them scrambling to preserve liquidity and ultimately leading to bankruptcy court, in no small part under the pressure of secured and soon to be DIP lenders (and in most cases, the post reorg equity) who will demand the least amount of Enterprise Value be wiped out in the months before bankruptcy. Here are the names.
We would be most worried about the near-term viability of the companies shown above: in our humble opinion these are the companies most at risk from the upcoming spring redetermination period. As for the companies shown below, we would not be quite as worried about them, although we are confident that in a few weeks time these "largest borrowing bases" will be substantially smaller.
Finally, courtesy of Haynes and Boone, here is a less impartial perspective thanks to a poll of banks, PE firms, and oil service companies who were asked to share their thoughts on the upcoming spring redetermination. Among the key findings:
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| Saudis To "Modernize" Economy As Interbank Rates Surge & Money Supply Collapses At Record Pace Posted: 28 Mar 2016 06:00 PM PDT For the first time since January 2009, 12-month Saudi interbank rates have breached 2.00% - double the 1% lows of August.
This 'stress' is also evident in the record pace of collapse of Saudi money-supply.
While Riyal forwards have rallied back from extreme bets on devaluation, they remain concerning for Saudi officials who to undertake some deep and fundamental changes to their economy, reforms that no amount of browbeating from organizations like the IMF could induce.
As OilPrice.com's Nick Cunningham details, a new report from The Atlantic Council finds that the extensive decline in oil revenues is focusing minds in Riyadh. The fiscal pressure is forcing “the kingdom’s leadership to modernize the economy,” the report concludes. Saudi Arabia ran a fiscal deficit of about $98 billion in 2015, a figure that will decline only slightly to $87 billion this year. That deficit total is also probably closer to $120 billion in reality though, given that the costs from the war in Yemen were not included. The fiscal squeeze is forcing some changes. First, the Saudi government is looking at new taxes, including a 5 percent value added tax (VAT). That may seem like a run-of-the-mill austerity measure, but for Saudi Arabia it is a novel proposal: it will be the first tax imposed in the country. More to the point, the VAT is illustrative of where Saudi Arabia is heading. The Atlantic Council argues that the kingdom is starting to reform its economy in fundamentally positive ways. Low oil prices are forcing it to rely more upon taxes and less on oil revenues. That would start to make Saudi Arabia less of a “rentier state,” a country that has no need to build much of an economy because resource extraction is so lucrative. Rentier states often suffer from greater corruption and a deeper lack of responsiveness to the needs of the public, since abundant oil revenues mean that the government does not need revenue from its populace. Another major shift in Saudi Arabia could be the partial privatization of Saudi Aramco. Prince Mohammed bin Salman made news in early January when he told The Economist that the government was mulling over such a step. There has been a lot of speculation about why an IPO would be staged. Transparency appears to be a top concern. While Aramco routinely publishes operational data, detailing production figures, shipments, and downstream activity, the company reveals very little about its finances. “The most likely explanation for Saudi Aramco’s lack of financial transparency is that it wants to hide how much money is siphoned off to the royal family,” The Atlantic Council report suggests. By privatizing some Aramco assets (likely downstream) and cleaning up and publishing data from the company’s books, the Saudi government apparently is showing some recognition that its relationship with the public must change. “Naturally, the royal family is unlikely to find itself cut off from any of the oil benefits to which it is accustomed. However, what is likely to change is that the family will no longer see itself as able to access funds without being held responsible by the Saudi public.” Obviously, the downturn in oil prices is not exactly something that the Saudi government is happy about. Although it has about $616 billion in cash reserves, enough to finance its large fiscal deficits for years, Saudi Arabia is burning through those reserves at a rapid clip. In 2014, Saudi Arabia had $746 billion in reserves at its highest point. Also, the government’s perennial top concern is social stability. Having to introduce new austerity measures, reduce subsidies, raise some taxes, and generally acknowledge that the country’s luxurious days could be coming to an end, the fall in oil prices presents some new risks. As The Atlantic Council notes in its report, any instability in a country that accounts for 10 percent of the world’s oil production would be felt across the globe. Still, the reforms underway are long overdue, and in that sense, there is a silver lining in the crude price crash. In recent years, Saudi Arabia has succeeded in starting to build a more diversified industrial economy, with new facilities producing chemicals, fertilizers, aluminum, cement, and other industrial products. Up until now, however, economic diversification has not gone as far as it could. Part of the reason is that Saudi Arabia, as a “rentier state,” does not tax manufacturing, and thus, has had little incentive to promote its growth. For that matter, it has had little incentive to promote the growth of any non-oil sector of its economy. Now, the reforms underway – new taxes, subsidy cuts, and the partial privatization of Saudi Aramco – are making Saudi Arabia “increasingly resemble most modern economic states.” However, it is still early days and the reforms are far from assured. “Admittedly, complete change will not come overnight, but it is nonetheless being prodded on by the decline in income,” the report concludes. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold Price Closed at $1220.10 Down $1 or -0.08% Posted: 28 Mar 2016 04:27 PM PDT
Happy Easter Monday! In Europe Easter Monday is a holiday, so not much happened today. Besides, even though options expiry occurred today, silver & gold had been driven down enough last week to keep the options writers from having to pay off on most options. Next options expiry is 26 April. Y'all watch how silver & gold will dip on that date. Stocks churned up and down today, one index gainsaying another. While the Nasdaq and Nasdaq 100 fell (about 0.15%), Dow Industrials & S&P500 rose tinily (I just coined that word). In jagged trading the Dow managed to end 19.8 (0.11%) higher. S&P500 millimetered up 1.11 (0.05%) to 2,037.05. Both indices have broken down from rising wedges. Okay, maybe they rise yet to a higher high by a few points? Won't save them. Rally over. After six higher days the US dollar index today dropped 21 basis points (0.22%) to 95.96. Supposedly this happened because the January personal consumption expenditures came in at 0.1% versus a 0.2% forecast. The idea of adults watching a number that imaginary and insignificant & then making investment decisions on it pains the fastidious mind. Seems to me the US dollar index just got too near the Kryptonite at the 50 day moving average (97.34) and withered. But how much can a nat'ral born durned fool from Tennessee know? I say "y'all" and my mouth can't even wrap around the words "youse guys." I wouldn't make it on Wall Street. Silver & gold prices moved little today. Hardly worth talking about. Gold lost one thin Fern (Federal Reserve Note) to $1,220.10. Silver gave up -- wait for it! -- 6/10 of a cent to 1518.5¢, in blistering trading. Gold felt with its toes toward the 50 day moving average ($1,197) and made a new low for the move at $1,206.10. Be warned now, so y'all don't fly to pieces when it happens, that if gold works through $1,200 the selling will hit it like a concrete block hitting a roach. Don't let that bother you. Ought to stop around $1,190 or $1,170. http://schrts.co/NFZqJT The silver price now is treading water below its 20 day moving average (1542¢), looking its 50 DMA (1504) in the eye. There's more: 200 DMA lieth just below at 1492¢, The bowl lip about 1460¢ looks strong enough to catch it. http://schrts.co/zsmR7J I won't be sending a commentary tomorrow because I'll be finishing my monthly newsletter. See y'all again Wednesday, God willing. Aurum et argentum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2016, 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. 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Michael Savage Donald Trump Interview - March 28, 2016 Posted: 28 Mar 2016 02:17 PM PDT Aired on March 28, 2016 - Michael Savage Donald Trump Interview The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Very Quiet Trade after Overnight Flash Crash Posted: 28 Mar 2016 01:18 PM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Unprecedented Central Bank Policies Call for a “Barbell Strategy” Posted: 28 Mar 2016 12:33 PM PDT This post Unprecedented Central Bank Policies Call for a "Barbell Strategy" appeared first on Daily Reckoning. Not a day goes by without some pretty significant developments in the markets. You should not react or overreact in a knee jerk fashion to each piece of data that comes out. You'll just end up getting whipped around. What you need to do – what analysts and investors need to do — is have a thesis to guide them. Don't pick one at random, but have a well thought out thesis. Then use the data to test that thesis. There's a name for this: it's called "inverse probability". You use subsequent data to test your original idea. That method is is different from a lot of science where you actually get a bunch of data and then you come up with an idea. Here, however, you have an idea and you come up with data to test it. There is no better way of approaching the markets because nobody has a crystal ball. Our thesis has a number of elements. One of them is that there is a tug-of-war going on between inflation and deflation, which I've written about in these pages before. That confuses a lot of people because they understand one or the other, but it's challenging for them to keep both things in mind at the same time. For your investment portfolio, that means taking a "barbell approach", which means have some protection at both ends. Have your deflation protection and your inflation protection, and some cash in the middle all at the same time because that's the best you can do with this kind of uncertainty. The uncertainty is caused by central bank policy. We are in unprecedented times. And that's not just my opinion. If you listen to Janet Yellen or members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) or members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, leading economists and policy makers, they all say the same thing. They say these are completely unprecedented times. The uncertainty is caused by central bank policy. Last year I had occasion to spend two hours one-on-one with one of the ultimate Fed insiders. Sometimes, when you do these things, you agree not to mention names so, I won't mention any names here. But this was a guy who was in the room for every FOMC vote for the past three and a half years. Nobody's closer to Bernanke and Yellen than this individual I spoke to. He's a PhD economist, a very well regarded scholar but not a very well known name because he's not actually on the FOMC. Yet he's been invited into the room to help them figure these things out. And what he said was that we're not really going to know if the Fed's policies worked as intended for another 50 years. He said 50 years from now, there will be another young scholar like Ben Bernanke was in the 1980s who comes along and figures all this stuff out. In other words, they're admitting that they don't know what they're doing. They're admitting this is kind of a big science experiment. What does that mean for us as investors, portfolio managers and people trying to make smart decisions? It means that we have to be nimble, and we have to watch the data. We can't put a stake in the ground around one particular outcome because the chance of getting blindsided by something coming up from behind is pretty high. Last month's jobs report was strong. The U.S. unemployment rate held steady at 4.9%. The economy has added about 228,000 jobs per month over the past three months. On the downside, the report showed that average U.S. wages fell last month after an increase in January. Average hourly earnings declined 3 cents an hour, the largest drop since 2014. I've said before that that's one of the things Janet Yellen watches most closely because the Fed has this crazy dual mandate of creating jobs and maintaining price stability at the same time. They're not really consistent goals; sometimes they run together, but sometimes they pull in opposite directions. Yellen's been putting the emphasis on job creation, but she wants some early warning about inflation. Seeing real wages going up is one indicator where the two wings of the plane, if you will, work together. If real wages are going up, that's a sign that slack is being reduced in the labor market. If labor can get a raise that might be an early indicator of inflation and that might mean we're getting closer to the point where she needs to raise interest rates again. Well, real wages actually declined last month, which didn't boost the case for a rate hike two weeks ago. And sure enough, Yellen held rates steady. There's an ongoing tug-of-war between inflation and deflation, but in a tug-of-war one team seems to get the upper hand on the other from time to time. When the Fed raises rates in December, it put Yellen on a path for four rate hikes this year. It's now clear there won't be four rate hikes. I still think there's a strong chance for a June rate hike. There's an outside chance for a hike next month, but I'm not confident about it. Has our thesis changed? I spent the better part of the weekend thinking about that because we do have to be alert to these trends. What appears to be going on – and we'll have to just keep watching this – is that I don't think the latest employment report changes the picture. Deflation still has the upper hand for now. Look at the oil patch, for evidence. The U.S. rig count is down, layoffs are going up, capital expenditure plans are being cut; we can see all those things happening. But they don't happen overnight. It takes a while to work through the supply chain, work through all the places where oil is an input. It shows up at the gas pump pretty quickly and it shows up in airfares pretty quickly. But for some industrial processes, it takes a while to filter through. Those trends are still working their way through the economy. They tend to come in waves. Companies start with some layoffs, and then do more the next month, more the next month, etc, to wait and see if things turn around, which I don't expect they will. And of course we cannot forget about the currency wars. China's is the second largest economy in the world and protracted Chinese weakness spells trouble for the global economy. China shocked global markets last August when it devalued the yuan dramatically. Another round of devaluation could have the same result on even shakier markets. So when the G-20 nations met in Shanghai last month, they secretly decided to cheapen the yuan relative to China's two largest trading partners, Europe and Japan. That served to weaken the yuan without the destabilizing effects of a devaluation. It was an invisible devaluation of the yuan. The consequences for Asia of a stronger yen and weaker yuan are easy to discern. Japanese corporate profits will be hurt two ways. Japanese exporters will be hurt because their products will be more expensive for foreign buyers. Japanese multinationals will be hurt when their overseas earnings are translated back into yen. It's a double-whammy for the Japanese stock market. As a result of last month's G-20 meeting, you can expect the dollar to fall, at least in the short term. But as I've told you before, you should be nimble and prepare for both inflation and deflation. Your initial portfolio should have gold, fine art, raw land, cash, bonds, select stocks and some alternatives in strategies like global macro hedge funds and venture capital. Not all of those strategies will pay off in every scenario but some will do well enough to outperform others and preserve your wealth in the overall portfolio. Regards, Jim Rickards P.S. Be sure to sign up for The Daily Reckoning — a free and entertaining look at the world of finance and politics. The articles you find here on our website are only a snippet of what you receive in The Daily Reckoning email edition. Click here now to sign up for FREE to see what you're missing. The post Unprecedented Central Bank Policies Call for a "Barbell Strategy" appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Mar 2016 12:20 PM PDT This post The Debt Piles Up appeared first on Daily Reckoning. It's a headline that inspires false hopes about politicians finally getting their comeuppance. "Wall Street's Pile of Unwanted Treasuries Exposes Market Cracks," Bloomberg reported a week ago. It seems the U.S. Treasury's "primary dealers" are saddled with more Treasury debt now than at any time since October 2013. The primary dealers are the 22 big banks and trading firms required to show up at Treasury auctions in exchange for a host of special privileges with the government and the Federal Reserve.
The backwash is accumulating partly because foreign central banks are unloading Treasuries at a record pace — $105 billion in December and January. It's so easy — and tempting — to draw the wrong conclusions from this story. Unwanted Treasuries? "Yes! We've reached the tipping point with a $19 trillion national debt! Finally, those foreigners are wising up and dumping Treasuries! Supply is overwhelming demand! Time to load up on TBT, the double-inverse Treasury ETF! I'll make a fortune shorting Treasuries!" Hold on, pardner. Once again, you're falling into the trap of "just world" investing. Yes, if it were a just world, no one would want U.S. Treasury debt and TBT would be a sure bet. If anything, these developments signal lower yields and higher prices on Treasuries. Nearly a year ago in these virtual pages, Jim Rickards described a discussion he had with a banker who works with the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee — a private group that meets regularly with Treasury and Fed officials to grease the wheels of the Treasury market. "Jim, it's worse than you know," said this highly connected individual. “Liquidity in many issues is almost nonexistent. We used to be able to move $50 million for a customer in a matter of minutes. Now it can take us days or weeks, depending on the type of securities involved.” Much of that is a function of new rules put in place after the Panic of 2008. Government regulations being what they are, the effect has been to make the system more risky, not less. But in the event of a dislocation, the most likely result is another "flash crash" like the one that occurred on Oct. 15, 2014 — when the yield on a 10-year note suddenly collapsed — sending prices higher — and then rebounded. The real problem lies in the spillover effects — as Jim described to us last year. Let's return to that inventory of Treasuries held by the primary dealers. "These inventories are financed on a short-term basis," Jim said, "sometimes overnight, using repurchase agreements — the so-called 'repo market.'" The repo market rate is close to the fed funds rate — that is, still less than half a percent. Meanwhile, 10-year Treasuries have traded with a yield-to-maturity of 2–3% since 2013. That's a handsome spread for a primary dealer who buys 10-year notes and finances them in the repo markets. Leverage the trade 10:1 and the return on dealer equity can be north of 20%. "But there's a catch," Jim goes on. “The dealer is financing a 10-year asset with overnight funds. If the repo rate rose sharply, the dealer could find that its profitable spread disappeared. In a worst case, the spread could go negative and the dealer might have to dump the 10-year note at a loss." Sure enough, stresses are showing up in the $1.6 trillion repo market — according to that very same Bloomberg story last week. "The combination of dealer demand, a global government-debt rally and reduced auction sizes caused a shortage in the repo market for the securities needed to close short positions in 10-year debt. Failures to deliver 10-year notes surged in the week ended March 9 to the most since at least 2013. For all Treasuries, failures reached the highest since the financial crisis, New York Fed data show." Long story short, in the three weeks since, these stresses appear to have abated — this time. But Jim anticipates one day there will be another flash crash in Treasury rates that won't bounce back — setting off the next financial crisis. "The solution for investors," Jim said last year, "is to have some assets outside the traditional markets and outside the banking system. These assets could be physical gold, silver, land, fine art, private equity or other assets that don’t rely on traditional stock and bond markets for their valuation.” Regards, Dave Gonigam P.S. Be sure to sign up for The Daily Reckoning — a free and entertaining look at the world of finance and politics. The articles you find here on our website are only a snippet of what you receive in The Daily Reckoning email edition. Click here now to sign up for FREE to see what you're missing. The post The Debt Piles Up appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Mar 2016 12:07 PM PDT This post Time to Sell the Family Home? appeared first on Daily Reckoning. BALTIMORE – Another indecisive week in the markets… China did not blow up. Energy company debt did not melt down. And investors did not panic in the face of a slowing world economy, falling corporate earnings, and central bank absurdities. This morning, all is well. But nothing fails like success. Throw a lot of money at any market, and you are asking for trouble. Today, readers are urged to check their real estate holdings. Tide of MoneyLast year, more than one-third of the houses sold in Vancouver went to Chinese buyers. All over Canada, the story was similar… though not as extreme. Houses are being sold to people who may or may not intend to live in them. That was great, if you were selling a house. A tide of money rushed in… House prices rose. But tides go both ways. They come in… and go out. And if you are counting on your house to hold its value… watch out. Housing is normally more stable than the stock market because tides in the housing market are slow and relatively weak. As Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller explained in his book Irrational Exuberance, contrary to popular belief, there is no continuous long-term uptrend in house prices. As Shiller puts it, most of the evidence "points to disappointingly low average rates of real [inflation-adjusted] appreciation of most homes." This makes sense. People do not readily "flip" or speculate with their homes. You can sell a stock with the push of a few buttons. But moving a household is a pain in the neck. It involves packing up, organizing a mover, settling up on utilities, saying goodbye to neighbors, and so forth. But when the guy next door is not really next door, his house is not really a home. It's a floating, speculative hedge. And if you never move in… moving out is a breeze. All it takes is a change in taxes, regulation, or the markets… and you're outta there. Super LuxuryReal estate hotspots have seen a lot of phantom buying over the last 10 years. In London and New York, for example, you find entire apartment buildings where no one is home. You can tell. Just look at them in the evening. Often, only the elevator shafts and hallways are lit. The apartments are all dark. Both cities are now seeing softness in upper-end property prices; perhaps the tide has turned. Top Manhattan apartments sell for more than $4,000 a square foot. At this level, a 1,200-sq-ft two-bedroom apartment sports a $4.8 million price tag. "Super-luxury" space… one small step down from the top… sells for nearly $3,000 a square foot. The law of supply and demand works in real estate as in other markets. But it is slower to express itself in bricks and mortar. As prices rise, developers (who were burned badly in the last building spree) keep their eyes warily on the market. First, they don't believe the higher prices will last. Then, prices go higher… and memories fade. Eventually, builders become confident again. It takes years between the time a decision is made on a major new apartment building and the time the doors open – time in which prices can rise even further. But when the new product is put on the market, the tide goes out like a crowd leaving a football game. The exits jam up with eager sellers. That appears to be happening now in New York and London. Sales are slow. Markets are crowded with empty units, advertised at fulsome prices. Bargain or Bomb?Meanwhile, over on the other side of the country, in Silicon Valley, the poor wizards of the Internet are having a hard time making ends meet. Palo Alto is proposing giving housing subsidies to people who, almost anywhere else, would be considered rich. Here's the report from London's Daily Mail:
If the newspaper was trying to impress its readers with a lurid picture of urban excess – a photo the "tear down" house sold recently for $2.7 million – it probably missed its mark. Londoners are used to excess in their property market. In 2014, one apartment overlooking Hyde Park was reportedly sold to an unnamed Russian for $237 million. At 16,000 square feet, that is perhaps the most expensive ever: Each square foot cost nearly $15,000. A bargain? Or a bomb? We don't know. But we offer the same advice we gave readers 10 years ago: If you were planning to sell an appreciated property "sometime in the future," this might be the future you were waiting for. Sell it. Buy something cheaper. Put the difference in gold. Regards, Bill Bonner P.S. Be sure to sign up for The Daily Reckoning — a free and entertaining look at the world of finance and politics. The articles you find here on our website are only a snippet of what you receive in The Daily Reckoning email edition. Click here now to sign up for FREE to see what you're missing. The post Time to Sell the Family Home? appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Mar 2016 12:00 PM PDT This post The Day the Wheels came Off appeared first on Daily Reckoning. As automobiles get ever more complicated, designers seem to make ever more mistakes. At least that's one conclusion you could make simply by scanning the number of recalls out there.  IFCAR Do you own a 2011 to 2013 VW Jetta or Beetle? Nearly half a million of the vehicles have been recalled. Let's have a look at a partial list of current recalls: More than 440,000 2011–2013 Volkswagen Jettas and 2012–2013 VW Beetles have been recalled for a suspension part that can collapse after a rear-end collision repair. More than 435,000 Chevy Malibus built in 2011 and 2012 have a steel cable from the seat belt to the frame that can fatigue and fail. Various 2015 models of the Subaru Forester, Impreza, Legacy, Outback and XV Crosstrek and the 2016 WRX with a safety feature called EyeSight have been recalled to fix a problem with the automatic braking system. The problem may involve more than 70,000 vehicles. About 330,000 GM trucks, including 2007 and 2008 models of the Silverado Heavy Duty and GMC Sierra Heavy Duty, may have faulty air bag inflators. Drivers of 12,300 Ford F-150 pickup trucks from 2015 could lose control of their steering because of an improperly riveted I-shaft. Ford is also asking owners of 520,000 Ford Fusions, Lincoln MKZs and Ford Edge SUVs built from 2013–2015 to return them to dealers. Some seem to suffer fractures in steering gear motor bolts because of rust, which is more of a problem in states where highway departments use salt on snowy roads. Kia has recalled more than 87,000 Forte sedans sold in 2014 because of a possible flaw in the cooling system that can result in a fire. Here's the big one: More than 30 million cars sold in the U.S. from 2002–2008 are under a recall notice for possibly defective front air bags on the driver's side, passenger side or both. The recall of Takata air bags involves cars made by Honda, BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Dodge, Nissan, General Motors, Toyota, Lexus, Mazda, Subaru and Mitsubishi. Takata is reportedly making a million new air bags a month to replace them, but the effort could take years to resolve. Meanwhile, the air bags can explode and kill the driver or passenger. In 2014 alone, about one in every four cars on the road was recalled. And although cars continue to get safer year by year, as many as a fourth of all cars recalled never get back to a dealer for the repair. So you've got to wonder: Does all the talk about a future with no accidents because of the coming age of self-driving autos take into account the manufacturing defects helpless riders seem destined to encounter? To your health and wealth, Stephen L. Petranek The post The Day the Wheels came Off appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Mar 2016 10:00 AM PDT Delta Global Advisors | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Confirmation That All is Not Well Posted: 28 Mar 2016 09:43 AM PDT This post Confirmation That All is Not Well appeared first on Daily Reckoning. The 1987 stock market crash raised concerns for the dangers associated with mounting U.S. "twin deficits." Fiscal and trade deficits were reflective of poor economic management. Credit excesses – certainly including excessive government borrowings – were stimulating demand that was reflected in expanding U.S. trade and Current Account Deficits. Concerns dissipated with the revival of the bull market. These days we're confronting the consequences of 30-plus years of mismanagement. Japan was the early major recipient of U.S. Bubble excess (throughout the eighties). The world today would be a much different place if the policy onus had fallen upon the Fed and congress to rein in U.S. borrowing excesses. Instead, enormous pressure was placed on Japan (and, later, others) to ameliorate trade surpluses with the U.S. by stimulating domestic demand. Such stimulus measures were instrumental in (repeatedly) stoking already powerful Bubbles to precarious extremes. Fiscal and Current Account Deficits exploded in the early-nineties post-Bubble period. And as the nineties reflation gathered momentum, the boom in Wall Street and GSE finance pushed the Current Account to previously unimaginable extremes. Then, as the decade progressed, the associated global boom in dollar-based finance proved ever more destabilizing. Always ignoring root causes, each new crisis provided an excuse to further stimulate/inflate. The fundamentally unsound dollar proved pivotal for European monetary integration, as the strong euro currency coupled with global liquidity abundance ensured runaway Bubble excesses throughout Europe's periphery. If the U.S. could run perpetual Current Account Deficits, why not Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal? Having ignored problematic financial and economic imbalances for years, when European troubles erupted everyone turned immediately to pressure the big surplus economy (Germany) to further stimulate their Bubble economy. Economists traditionally viewed persistent Current Account Deficits as problematic. But as New Paradigm and New Era thinking took hold throughout the nineties, all types of justification and rationalization turned conventional analysis on its head. The U.S. was the world's lone superpower, leading the world into a golden age of new technologies and free-market Capitalism. The Greenspan Fed believed a paradigm shift of enhanced productivity boosted the economy's "speed limit". Financial conditions turned perpetually loose. And if the Bubble burst, just call upon some fanatical academic willing to evoke "helicopter money". With U.S. officials turning their backs on financial excesses, Bubble Dynamics and unrelenting Current Account Deficits, I expected the world to lose its appetite for U.S. financial claims. After all, how long should the world be expected to trade real goods and services for endless U.S. IOUs? As it turned out, rather than acting to discipline the profligate U.S. Credit system, the world acquiesced to Bubble Dynamics. No one was willing to be left behind. Along the way it was learned that large reserves of U.S. financial assets were integral to booming financial inflows and attendant domestic investment and growth. The U.S. has now run persistently large Current Account Deficits for going on 25 years. Seemingly the entire globe is now trapped in a regime of unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus required to levitate a world with unmatched debt and economic imbalances. History has seen nothing comparable. And I would strongly argue that the consequences of Bubbles become much more problematic over time. The longer excesses persist the deeper the structural impairment. Not many months ago bullish Wall Street strategists and pundits were celebrating the backdrop. It appeared to many that global central bankers had mastered the perpetual "money" machine. Markets could only go higher. Yet one would have to be delusional not to recognize the darkening clouds overtaking the world and U.S. Look no further than global terrorist attacks, geopolitical tension and the sour U.S. political discourse as confirmation that All is Not Well. Over the years, I've been accused of being a left-wing liberal as well as a right-wing conservative. I'm pretty determined to keep politics out of the CBB. Yet it's fundamental to my analysis that years of monetary and fiscal mismanagement are elemental to today's darkening social mood. The "establishment" is despised. Washington policymakers and Wall Street are held in complete contempt. And, importantly, Capitalism is under attack. Globalization is now viewed with deep suspicion. The establishment is shocked that trade deals are these days seen as disadvantageous to U.S. workers. Integration and cooperation has become a game for suckers. Instead of the world turning against the ever inflating quantities of U.S. financial claims circulating around the globe, it's the American working class that has become increasingly fed up with the structure of the economic system. Trading new financial claims for inexpensive imports worked almost miraculously. For longer than I ever imagined, unfettered global finance spurred a historic capital investment boom – in China, Asia and EM. But this Bubble has burst globally, while the U.S. economy is left with much of its industrial base gutted and workers suffering stagnant wages. Most now refuse to view the future through rose-colored glasses. Many have just had enough of the BS – from politicians, from Wall Street, from "Big Business," the media and the inflationist Federal Reserve. We now face the downside of years of monetary inflation, including the consequences of repeatedly inflating expectations. Folks are understandably disillusioned. The political season has cracked things wide open. Gross global economic imbalances and maladjustment are being exposed. The rank inequities of the existing structure are feeding social, political and geopolitical instability. Wall Street can continue to pretend that all is well – while the backdrop clearly turns more disconcerting by the week. My thesis remains that the global Bubble has burst. Current risks are extraordinary, and global officials are at this point wedded to desperate measures. The ECB increased QE to over $1.0 TN annually, while adding corporate debt to its shopping list. Chinese officials have stated their intention to stabilize their currency, while spurring 13% system Credit expansion (to ensure 6.5% GDP growth). Market perceptions hold that the Bank of Japan is willing to boast QE, while the Fed would clearly not hesitate to again call upon QE as necessary. Global markets have rallied strongly over the past month. Bear market rally or a springboard to another bull run? Or has it all regressed to a sullied game where only the timing of unfolding fiasco is unknown. Fundamental to the Bursting Bubble Thesis is that a most protracted global Credit Cycle has finally succumbed. "Terminal Phase" excess has left conspicuous wreckage throughout the Chinese economy and financial system – with momentous global ramifications. China – along with the global Bubble – now faces the dreaded day of reckoning. Confidence in Chinese policymaking has waned – just as faith is fading in the capacity of QE to rectify the world's ills. I have viewed 2016's pronounced weakness in global financial stocks as important validation of the Burst Bubble Thesis. After rallying with the market, financial underperformance has reemerged. Here at home, the Securities Broker/Dealers (XBD) sank 3.1% this week, increasing y-t-d losses to 10.8%. The Banks (BKX) dropped 1.6%, with a 2016 decline of 11.3%. And while Chinese stocks mustered a small advance for the week, the Hang Sang Financial Index declined 1.1% (down 11.7% y-t-d). I have posited that a vulnerable Europe resides "at the margin" of the faltering global Bubble. With this in mind, European financial stocks deserve close attention. This week saw the STOXX Europe 600 Banks Index slammed 4.9%, increasing y-t-d losses to 19.8%. Italian banks were hit 3.8% (down 29% y-t-d). While on the subject of vulnerable rallies and Europe, it's worth noting that French and Spanish stocks dropped about 3% this week, while Italian equities fell 2.4%. German bund yields declined another three bps (to 18 bps), while periphery spreads widened (Greece +17, Spain +12, Portugal +6 and Italy +6). March 25 – Bloomberg (Rich Miller and Alexandre Tanzi): "On the face of it, the latest government update on how the U.S. economy performed in the fourth quarter looked a bit more encouraging. Growth was revised to a 1.4% annualized pace from a previously estimated 1%… consumer spending rose more than previously thought. Yet beyond the headline number, there is a reason for some concern. Corporate profits plunged 11.5% in the fourth quarter from the year-ago period, the biggest drop since a 31% collapse at the end of 2008 during the height of the financial crisis. For 2015 as a whole, pretax earnings fell 3.1%, the most in seven years…" I view unfolding profit deterioration as a consequence of the secular downturn in U.S. and global Credit. The real earnings pain will unfold as securities markets succumb to the deteriorating domestic and global backdrop – the self-reinforcing downside of so-called "wealth effects" and financial engineering. Acutely unstable currencies markets are also central to the Burst Global Bubble Thesis. This week saw the dollar lurch higher and recently strong currencies hit with losses, the type of unpredictability and volatility that are anything but conducive to leverage. And while on the subject of leverage: March 23 – Financial Times (Izabella Kaminska): "The spike in US Treasury bond fails to deliver, which started earlier this year, is something we've been watching closely. It's fair to say we're now at a significant milestone and the story is beginning to go mainstream. From the WSJ on Tuesday: 'Settlement failures in Treasury repurchase transactions in March hit their highest level since 2008, underscoring concerns on Wall Street that trading conditions are apt to deteriorate in even the most-liquid markets under the acute stress evident early this year. Almost 13% of Treasury repos through primary dealers in the week ended March 9 included a failure by one party to deliver securities as promised…' Over at ADMISI Paul Mylchreest has dubbed it a $450bn plumbing problem…" All is not well in leveraged speculation… Regards, Doug Noland P.S. Be sure to sign up for The Daily Reckoning — a free and entertaining look at the world of finance and politics. The articles you find here on our website are only a snippet of what you receive in The Daily Reckoning email edition. Click here now to sign up for FREE to see what you're missing. The post Confirmation That All is Not Well appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Please, Hand me a Bottle of Tylenol! Posted: 28 Mar 2016 09:00 AM PDT This post Please, Hand me a Bottle of Tylenol! appeared first on Daily Reckoning. A reader recently sent an email, asking: "What do you think of BRIZF, Brazil Resources? There are some interesting people putting money in this!" What does he mean by "interesting people"? Someone please hand me a bottle of Tylenol. My brain is already starting to hurt. Maybe my brutal honesty will make this reader unhappy, angry, sad and emotionally unstable. But we call this letter Covel Uncensored for a reason. Let's start by going down this "interesting" rabbit hole for a moment. I will play along with an example. Here goes. Kim Kardashian is interesting. She is the daughter of one of OJ's attorneys. Her dad helped to get a killer off in the most famous case of American courtroom abuse. As a kid, she saw her dad becoming famous for that. I guess that motivated her. That's interesting. As she got older she released a sex tape and somehow parlayed American's love of voyeurism into a hit TV show. I suspect she is worth hundreds of millions. That's interesting. Now that we agree she is interesting how is that useful for anything? It's not. But maybe this reader means someone interesting in the investment world. So, I will play along. Straight from the headlines: hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is interesting. He's one of most famous billionaires on Wall Street. Last year, he bought a $91 million apartment, the second-highest price ever paid in Manhattan. And his company Pershing Square Capital Management has crushed the returns of the stock market. From 2004 to the end of 2014, Pershing Square generated a total return of 692% net of fees, beating the S&P 500’s 132% return. We should just blindly follow Bill Ackman's investments because he is interesting, right? How to Lose 85% Following Interesting PeopleBack in 2015, Ackman's fund took a massive position in Valeant Pharmaceuticals. How did that turn out? Take a look at the chart…
If you had followed his brilliance on Valeant you would have lost your shirt. But at least he is interesting! My sarcasm aside, in October 2015 short-seller Citron came out with report accusing Valeant of fake sales and calling it the "Pharmaceutical Enron." At the time, the trend was already down, as you can see in the chart. The news of potential accounting fraud just accelerated the downturn. If Ackman had been simply following the trend, he would have gotten out a long, long time ago. Instead, he's sitting on the biggest loss of his career. My point is… blindly following interesting people is a mindless strategy… even if they have a legendary track record. Which brings me to the main question… Should You Buy Shares of Brazil Resources?We have already established you can't buy an asset just because interesting people are buying it. Now, I understand that Brazil Resources is a small exploration company with substantial gold projects in Brazil and Alaska. Projects that may or may not pan out. Risky? You bet. How many times have you heard small exploration companies tell their investors, "Sorry, we didn't find as much gold as projected, we're going out of business." That happens all the time. It happens so often that many of these plays are most likely organized scams from the outset, a way for operators to legally steal. And what happens if the price of gold does not go up? Unless you're an expert in geology and mining, your odds of losing money in exploration companies are very high. It's the same as gambling… gambling while blindfolded and drunk perhaps. Plus, the liquidity here is terrible. For that reason, my proprietary system will never recommend this stock. The lack of liquidity can lead to some crazy price action. On July 2, 2015, for example, the stock went from $0.481 to $0.045. That's a 91% drop in one day! Talk about having a heart attack. (Are we seriously talking about this insane stock?!). Granted, the stock recovered most of the losses that day. But what would you have done if you had checked the price that day? I bet you would have made a panic sell at the very bottom. Investing in a diversified portfolio of gold miners is a much better bet. And I'm saying that because my proprietary system currently has a buy signal on gold stocks. For example, it triggered a buy signal on GDXJ, an ETF that tracks the performance of junior gold miners. And it's showing a stop loss at $16.03. I don't know of any interesting people investing in GDXJ. But that's a much safer way to invest your hard earned capital than Brazil Resources. Please send me your comments to coveluncensored@agorafinancial.com. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please tell me exactly what you think. Don't sugar coat it! Regards, Michael Covel The post Please, Hand me a Bottle of Tylenol! appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Professional Class is Burning Out Posted: 28 Mar 2016 08:14 AM PDT This post The Professional Class is Burning Out appeared first on Daily Reckoning. If you work for Corporate America in a managerial or professional capacity, you know all about burnout, because you see it all around you or are experiencing it yourself. Readers describe what they are seeing in the top ranks of S&P 500 corporations, and the stories (anonymous because everyone knows the truth will get them fired/blacklisted) are all about the high personal costs of earning big paychecks by making the numbers–not just revenue but the all-important profits that power the multi-trillion-dollar valuations of U.S. corporations and the stock market that glories in their magnificent and ever-growing profits. Corporate America depends on this class of workers to reap its stupendous profits: the attorneys, physicians and nurses who churn out the billable work; the CPAs who either cook the books or look the other way when others rig the books to make the company look more profitable than it actually is; the managers who squeeze the line workers to produce more; the software engineers and project managers who are always under deadline and always pressured to use cheaper temps; the Wall Street work-hounds who have to use uppers and other dangerous stimulants to function for 70-80 hours a week, week in and week out; the multitudes addicted to painkillers or other prescription drugs to manage their psychological and physical pain; the working parents whose family life is imploding under the demands of their employers; social workers burdened with ever-larger case loads–the examples are endless. Even if you don’t work in this class, you see burnout all around you: people burned out by crushingly long commutes, by juggling two jobs, or small-business owners resorting to self-exploitation, i.e. working ridiculous hours for little or no pay, just to keep their enterprise (and dream of self-employment) alive. What no financial analyst dares confess is the corporate profits they cheer every quarter have come at a cost that many Americans will soon be unable to bear. Millions of highly experienced, essential employees of Corporate America, from physicians and nurses to top managers and technologists are either planning to quit, retire, cut their hours or file a workers compensation claim for stress related to their work. There is a growing body of medical and business-management literature on occupational burnout: Occupational burnout–Maslach Burnout Inventory A growing body of evidence suggests that burnout is clinically and nosologically similar to depression. In a study that directly compared depressive symptoms in burned out workers and clinically depressed patients, no diagnostically significant differences were found between the two groups; burned out workers reported as many depressive symptoms as clinically depressed patients.  Working parents aren’t speaking up in the workplace, and they’re leaving their managers in the dark. (PRNewsFoto/Bright Horizons Family Solutions) Check out the burnout rate in the most profitable sector of the economy, finance and financial services:
Though no one dares connect rising workloads and corporate profits, isn’t it more than coincidence that U.S. corporate profits soared not just when production was offshored and financialization took off, but when workloads increased and “work-life balance” became a buzzword for what was no longer possible?
Many people are lauding corporate efforts to ease stress at the workplace with onsite yoga classes and the like. I call B.S.–what people want is less pressure, more time with their families, and to be treated as human beings rather than interchangeable units of production. Yoga classes and the occasional corporate party don’t provide these essentials. Guess what happens when corporate profits tumble: all the wealthy people at the top of the pyramid lose a lot of money: the executives counting on huge gains from stock options, hedge funds who’d bet the farm on this corporation’s “outperformance,” and the big institutional owners of the company’s stock. No wonder the pressure on the managerial class is so unremitting and intense: the whole rickety structure of wealth in the U.S. stock market is poised to collapse once profits crater. There are a couple of ways out for burnouts fleeing Corporate America, but each has its own trade-offs and costs. One is early retirement, another is early retirement plus a low-paying, low-stress part-time job. Another is self-employment in the cash-only economy (One Part of the Economy Is Booming: The Underground/Cash-Only Sector October 9, 2015) or in other sectors open to self-employment. Financial independence is the American Dream because it gives us the freedom to say Take This Job And Shove It (2:31, Johnny Paycheck). Unfortunately, the costs of starting and operating a small business are risingdue to junk fees imposed by local government, higher taxes, soaring healthcare insurance costs, etc.: Many refugees from Corporate America would love to quit tomorrow but as they explore the alternatives, they find that their income will drop from $90,000 or $100,000 to $30,000 or less outside the fortresses of Corporate America and Government. That means completely reworking the cost structure of one’s household: paying off all debt, downsizing expenses not by hundreds of dollars but by thousands, and figuring out ways to develop multiple income streams that the household owns and controls. It can be done, but it requires a revolution in understanding and financial arrangements. Longtime readers know this is what I have written about for ten years in the blog and in books like Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy, which can also be read as a primer for those seeking self-employment. Regards, Charles Hugh Smith P.S. Ever since my first summer job decades ago, I've been chasing financial security. Not win-the-lottery, Bill Gates riches (although it would be nice!), but simply a feeling of financial control. I want my financial worries to if not disappear at least be manageable and comprehensible. And like most of you, the way I've moved toward my goal has always hinged not just on having a job but a career. You don't have to be a financial blogger to know that "having a job" and "having a career" do not mean the same thing today as they did when I first started swinging a hammer for a paycheck. Even the basic concept "getting a job" has changed so radically that jobs–getting and keeping them, and the perceived lack of them–is the number one financial topic among friends, family and for that matter, complete strangers. So I sat down and wrote this book: Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy. It details everything I've verified about employment and the economy, and lays out an action plan to get you employed. I am proud of this book. It is the culmination of both my practical work experiences and my financial analysis, and it is a useful, practical, and clarifying read. The post The Professional Class is Burning Out appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Mar 2016 07:02 AM PDT This post It’s Data Week appeared first on Daily Reckoning. And now… today's Pfennig for your thoughts… Good day, and a marvelous Monday to you! The currencies and metals are taking a break this morning, and probably for most of this week, until we get to Friday, which will bring us April Fool’s day, and a Jobs Jamboree. Now that’s funny! Those two go together like two peas in a pod! I still can’t stop giggling about the fact that the Jobs Jamboree, which I don’t care about any more, and April Fool’s Day will coincide this year. Like I said above the currencies and metals are taking a break today, with little movement whatsoever in either asset class. Last week brought us a lot of Fed speak about hike rates in April, after passing on a rate hike in March, and the talk didn’t end on Friday, as on Saturday, St. Louis Fed President, James Bullard, told an audience that the Fed could hike rates in April or June. All this rate hike talk has the dollar back in the driver’s seat, which is where it sits this morning. A lot of currencies this morning have tiny gains, but in reality, they’re flat with a bias to drop into negative territory given the rate hike talk. So, what’s changed that the Fed members, who just a couple of weeks ago, sounded like they lost their puppy, as they described why they left rates unchanged, are now sounding like they have had a complete recovery from whatever it was that was ailing them two weeks ago? It sure wasn’t the disappointing Retail Sales report, nor was it the negative Durable Goods and Capital Goods Orders, or was it the negative Factory Orders report. So, come on tell us, tell us true, what has changed the Fed’s minds because it sure hasn’t been the economic data. Well, maybe they got a hold of a preliminary report on PCE which will print today. Recall, that the PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditure) is the preferred method of tracking inflation by the Fed, as even the Fed can recognize a load of dookie when they see it (CPI). For most of the last year, PCE remained subdued around 1.3% (the Fed wasn’t 2% inflation to hike rates), but last month PCE finally broke higher to 1.7% year on year (yoy) and this month we could see it break higher still to 1.8%, according to the economists surveyed. But it would still be below 2%, right? So, thinking that the Fed got a hold of the PCE data before everyone else, is reaching for straws. The Fed Atlanta, didn’t help things by revising their forecast for the 1st QTR 2016. And that’s one of “their own”, doing the dirty work on data. Yes, it was reported last Thursday that the Fed Atlanta revised downward their forecast for first QTR GDP from 1.9% to 1.4%. Now, that’s what I call a “revision”! So, I’ll keep searching for an answer to the question: “What happened that changed the Fed’s minds from two weeks ago?” The U.S. Data Cupboard also has the Personal Income and Spending data from February for us to see today, in addition to the PCE. If the spending data disappoints we could very well see those calls for a rate hike in April fade again. It’s all about the U.S, this week folks. I do believe that Indian PM Modi will present his budget for the next year, this week, but that takes a back seat to the Jobs Jamboree in the markets collective minds. The Chinese renminbi saw a downward move in the fixing last night, but not as large as the moves last week. The talk going around is that the Chinese economy is beginning to show signs of stabilization. And maybe that’s the answer to our question above. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb, right here, right now, and say this talk about China stabilizing IS the reason the Fed members are more upbeat. All I would say to that is that they (the Fed members) need to be careful, for there have been a few false dawns on the Chinese economy in the past few years. Memo to Fed members. Please be sure that the what you’re seeing from China has staying power, before hiking rates. And speaking of China. All I am saying. is give peace a chance. You know, that song could go a long way in the world today with all the geopolitical tensions, but that’s not what I’m using it for today. Instead, I’m borrowing it from a research paper I read over the Holy weekend. In this case, I’m talking about the Currency Wars. The writer of the research paper thought that the most recent moves by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) and the European Central Bank (ECB) had kept their respective currencies from weakening, as they targeted other things like credit, and BOJ just cut rates into negative territory instead of adding to Q/E (bond buying). In my opinion, it was like: “currency wars-lite”. So, if that’s what it takes to get this Currency War on track to ending. I’m all for it! The price of oil is steady Eddie this morning just a shade below $40. Oil’s price sure has played its part as a yo-yo, doing the Lindy-Loop, and this is a bit unnerving to me, because it just doesn’t have a clear direction carved out. So, I guess patience here is important. Gold is flat this morning, after a very ugly week of trading last week. The boys and girls that play with paper trades sure made life bad for gold holders last week, and really increased their short paper trades during the week. I’ve talked about this chart that Ed Steer prints in his letter from time to time before, but what it does it gives you the number of days of production it would take to cover the short positions of commodities including the precious metals. Silver leads the pack with the most short contracts that would take 180 days of production to cover the short positions. Gold’s number is much lower at 85, but still, how does someone get away with going short on a metal like silver that will take 180 days of production to cover the short? And on top of that the U.S. Mint just keeps putting out the hit records on silver, as each week, as reported by Ed Steer, the number of Silver Eagle 1-oz. coins that get sold go up by 1 million. That’s right 1 million ounces of physical silver out the door each week! And yet, silver can’t find a bid that would drive the price higher. So, all I can say is to keep the pressure on the short paper holders with more physical metals buying. It’s the only thing I see that could end these short paper trades. U.S. stocks sure made a comeback in March didn’t they? At the end of February it appeared that the stock market bubble had finally found the pin in the room, but then March came in like a lamb for stocks, and is going to go out like a lion, that is unless we have a complete reversal this week. The only reason I mention this is to point out just useful the PPT (price protection team) can be. And yes, I’m being facetious. But isn’t if un to be facetious at times, besides I’m still thinking of ways I can have fun with the April Fool’s Day/Jobs Jamboree Friday this week! I recently put the finishing touches on the April Review & Focus, and in it I talked about how it just doesn’t seem to work out, in my opinion, that the Fed’s Birth/Death Model kept adding jobs to their monthly surveys last year, when it was reported that more businesses closed (deaths) than opened (births) in 2015. But that just leads to this article that came to me over the Holy Weekend from MarketWatch, where you can read it all here, or here is the snippet:
Chuck again. And the Fed raised rates in 2015? And think they are going to do two more this year (down from their initial call for four more rate hikes this year)? And that’s all I’m going to say about all that! That’s it for today. I hope you have a marvelous Monday, and be sure to be good to yourself! Regards, Chuck Butler P.S. Be sure to sign up for The Daily Reckoning — a free and entertaining look at the world of finance and politics. The articles you find here on our website are only a snippet of what you receive in The Daily Reckoning email edition. Click here now to sign up for FREE to see what you're missing. The post It’s Data Week appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What has happened to Black Gold? | Maarten van Mourik Posted: 28 Mar 2016 06:20 AM PDT Matterhorn AM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese investors see golden opportunity Posted: 28 Mar 2016 04:57 AM PDT By Biman Mukherji The rise in the price of gold -- up 15% from its six-year low in mid-December -- is stoking out-of-season buying in China, which consumes more than a fifth of global supplies. Typically, gold purchases in China are strongly associated with jewelry buying around the Lunar New Year holiday, which this fell in early February. But the uncertainty confronting global economies has driven up demand from a different sort of buyer -- the hard-nosed investor. "It has been very, very busy for us in the last few weeks," said Padraig J. Seif, chief executive officer at Finemetal Asia Ltd., a large Hong Kong-based bullion dealer that sold more gold in the first three weeks of March than in all of February. The biggest jump, Mr. Seif says, has been the 10-fold increase in sales of 250-gram bars, which cost roughly US$10,000. Sales of the 1,000-gram kilobars were up by 50%, with most of the buyers corporate investors rather than jewelry makers. ... ... For the remainder of the report: http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-investors-see-golden-opportunity-in-... ADVERTISEMENT Free Storage with BullionStar in Singapore Until 2016 Bullion Star is a Singapore-registered company with a one-stop bullion shop, showroom, and vault at 45 New Bridge Road in Singapore. Bullion Star's solution for storing bullion in Singapore is called My Vault Storage. With My Vault Storage you can store bullion in Bullion Star's bullion vault, which is integrated with Bullion Star's shop and showroom, making it a convenient one-stop-shop for precious metals in Singapore. Customers can buy, store, sell, or request physical withdrawal of their bullion through My Vault Storage® online around the clock. Storage is FREE until 2016 and will have the most competitive rates in the industry thereafter. For more information, please visit Bullion Star here: Join GATA here: Mines and Money Asia http://asia.minesandmoney.com/ Mining Investment Asia http://www.mininginvestmentasia.com/ Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of GATA's London conference in August 2011 or GATA's Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html 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: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What has happened to Black Gold? | Maarten van Mourik Posted: 28 Mar 2016 03:02 AM PDT THE MATTERHORN INTERVIEW: Maarten van Mourik – March 2016"The Current Oil Price: A Blessing & A Curse"Maarten van Mourik is one of the top oil analysts running his own consultancy since 2000. He discusses, inter alia, the ending of QE3 in the US and a strengthening dollar as part of the reason for the oil price demise and … Read the rest | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Economist acknowledges 'financial repression' -- at a safe distance from London Posted: 28 Mar 2016 02:21 AM PDT 4:21p ICT Monday, March 28, 2016 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: In an article headlined "A Tarnished Appeal," The Economist magazine, the voice of the supposedly learned establishment, acknowledges this week that India's government continues to wage a decades-old war on gold that arises mainly from the government's own irresponsibility with its currency. The Economist writes: "Decades of inflation and a much-debased rupee have pushed savers towards what is, in effect, a convenient way to insulate their nest-egg from the poor decisions of India's policymakers (and, just as often, from its tax inspectors). In rupee terms, in other words, gold has been a stellar investment. ... ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT We Are Amid the Biggest Financial Bubble in History; With GoldCore you can own allocated -- and most importantly -- segregated coins and bars in Switzerland, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Switzerland, Singapore, and Hong Kong remain extremely safe jurisdictions for storing bullion. Avoid exchange-traded funds and digital gold providers where you are a price taker. Ensure that you are outright legal owner of your bullion. If you do not own segregated bullion that you can visit, inspect, and take delivery of, you are exposed. Crucial guides to storage in Singapore and Switzerland can be read here: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-switzerland GoldCore does not report transactions to any authority. Safety, privacy, and confidentiality are paramount when we are entrusted with storage of our clients' precious metals. Email the GoldCore team at info@goldcore.com or call our trading desk: UK: +44(0)203-086-9200. U.S.: +1-302-635-1160. International: +353(0)1-632-5010. Visit us at: http://www.goldcore.com "Policymakers have other ways of making gold less appealing. A modest excise tax in the recently unveiled budget has kept jewellers across the country on strike for a month. Gold sellers were already furious at import duties and rules forcing them to identify customers buying more than 200,000 rupees' ($3,000) worth. In addition, the central bank is discouraging lending to buy gold. ... "If the government really wanted to accelerate this shift, it could change its own ways. Various laws steer a big share of bank deposits into low-yielding government debt and agricultural loans. That, in turn, means that Indians earn little interest on their savings, enhancing gold's relative appeal. Such financial repression helps the government fund itself cheaply. But it means that Indians are sitting on gold equivalent in value to four months of economic output. That could be financing productive investments instead." Wow -- so "financial repression" by governments has been acknowledged by The Economist, if at the great distance of London from Mumbai. Now how about a longer excursion into the subject by the magazine? It could start not even 3 miles away at the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street, a nerve center of gold market intervention. Some ideas for such an excursion can be found here: http://www.gata.org/node/14839 The Economist's article is posted here: http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21695558-indias-gove... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Join GATA here: Mines and Money Asia http://asia.minesandmoney.com/ Mining Investment Asia http://www.mininginvestmentasia.com/ Support GATA by purchasing recordings of the proceedings of the 2014 New Orleans Investment Conference: https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/2014-av-powell Or by purchasing DVDs of GATA's London conference in August 2011 or GATA's Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html 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: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marc Faber: Gold Still Most Desirable Currency in Wake of Brussels Attack Posted: 28 Mar 2016 01:00 AM PDT After several years of low gold prices, 2016 has brought a rebound, with the metal rising almost 20% since the first of the year, although recent price corrections have slowed gold's advance. After the Brussels terrorist attacks last Tuesday, gold rose briefly, but then was undercut by a strong U.S. dollar rally. Investors are wondering whether gold is in a temporary correction mode or if the three-month bull has run its course. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 27 Mar 2016 05:00 PM PDT The markets (any market) are seldom surprised by shocking events. But during those rare instances when a surprise catches the market a panic may result. My definition of a panic is this: A panic is a collapse (triggered by fear and unforeseen... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold: The "First Wave" in a 40-Year Cycle Posted: 27 Mar 2016 05:00 PM PDT Eric Hadik of 40yearcycle.com and Insiide Track Trading discusses his outlook on the stock market, gold, and the possibility of food crises ahead using long-term historical cycles that he's identified going back hundreds of years.... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| China Economy Soft Landing or Bust? SSEC Stock Market Analysis Posted: 27 Mar 2016 10:00 AM PDT China’s stock market ‘bubble’ was fueled by "speculative mania" which has proven to have had grave implications of the global stock markets. The collapse of this "speculative mania" will have far reaching ramifications on our current global stock markets. This indicates that Central Bank interventions cannot alter market cycles. |
“It appears that perhaps one-third of our total diet is dependent, directly or indirectly, upon insect-pollinated plants.” These words, written in 1976 by retired USDA apiculturist S.E. McGregor, still ring true today. Today, the Economics of Plant Pollination (as his paper was entitled), are more important than ever, as honey bees, butterflies and other 
“The rally you never sell”! This is a topic Jim and I have spoken of and just recently discussed in our latest recorded chat. This is also a topic very fitting to start off with for our “gold subscribers” because of where we are economically and financially on a global basis. Hopefully as you go through this missive, a light bulb will go on (if it has not already) and fully understand that “when and how” are not really relevant, the big question is “what”, I’ll explain.
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