Baltic Dry Index. 1037 +27
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"As fewer and fewer people have confidence in paper as a store of value, the price of gold will continue to rise." "The history of fiat money is little more than a register of monetary follies and inflations. Our present age merely affords another entry in this dismal register."
Hans F. Sennholz
Today across the Atlantic the US Fed meets,
starting its two day divination session. Professional Fed watchers are
expecting more of the same as last month. More QE and ever more voodoo monetary
policy. Once on QE it’s very likely impossible to ever stop, without triggering
the depression it was started to prevent. But unlimited QE, electronically
printing up money from nothing, ends in one of two ways. The fiat currency
eventually gets shunned, as no one trusts it any longer for international
trade. Alternatively, for whatever reason, a sustainable global recovery commences,
and a new frantic scramble begins to buy up all classes of tangible assets
before the giant inflation sets in.
Below, MarketWatch covers the High Priests of
Mammon assembling.
"Were we to be directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
Thomas Jefferson
Oct. 22, 2012, 3:03 p.m. EDT
Fed considers upping QE3 size and language
Central bank could alter guidance at this week’s meeting
WASHINGTON
(MarketWatch) — After historic changes last month, Federal Reserve officials
this week will discuss a possible expansion of the size of its third round of
bond buying and better ways to guide markets about future policy actions.
At its
two-day meeting that starts Tuesday, the Fed may abandon its calendar-date
approach to forward guidance and adopt some form of numerical target for
policy, according to analysts.
And the
central bank will consider whether to expand its bond-buying at the end of the
year to take account of Treasury purchases under its Operation Twist plan that
finishes at year-end.
No final
decisions are expected when the Federal Open Market Committee releases a
statement at 2:15 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. Economists will parse the summary
of the Fed’s deliberations to be released on Nov. 15 for clues to what actions
may come at the last meeting of the year in mid-December.
---- Last month, the Fed announced a plan to purchase $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities per month in an open-ended approach that would continue until the labor market improved.
While it
may not sound like much, the Fed may buy over $1 trillion in MBS based on
current forecasts, analysts at Capital Economics estimate.
The Fed
also took the dramatic step of saying it expects to keep short-term interest
rates unchanged even if the recovery strengthens. It also pushed out the
calendar date for the expected first rate hike until mid-2015.
More
Unsurprisingly, all this QE nonsense by the BOE, BOJ,
ECB, and the Fed, has the global central banksters worried. They also know that
it always ends in disaster. Increasingly they are remonetising gold.
"When paper money systems begin to crack at the seams, the run to gold could be explosive."
Harry Browne
Oct. 20, 2012, 9:01 a.m. EDT
10 nations that control the world’s gold
It is now
more obvious than ever that gold is becoming the new global reserve currency.
Continuous and aggressive central-bank actions from the United States and
Europe are driving the demand for gold. Investors have not yet seen any of the
real hyperinflationary pressures that seem likely down the road.
Gold’s
substantial rise in price should speak for itself. In dollar terms, gold
returned 11.1% in the third quarter and was up by 16% year-to-date through the
end of the quarter. The World Gold Council said that gold has a low
stock-market correlation through time. That was not the case in the third
quarter. Gold still outperformed almost all the major equity markets in the
largest gold-holding nations in 2012.
24/7 Wall
St. analyzed how the gold rankings compare to each major nation’s gross
domestic product and how those figures compare to the top 10 holders of gold.
What is surprising in some cases is how countries with the largest GDP are not
necessarily the largest holders of gold. Two small nations, the Netherlands and
Switzerland, are major holders of gold. Under the terms of the Central Bank
Gold Agreement among major
European states, many countries are supposed to be
selling gold but are not.
The
United Kingdom’s $2.43 trillion in GDP is the world’s seventh largest, but its
gold holdings of 310.3 tonnes rank only 17th in the world and account for only
15.9% of its total foreign reserves. Does the old term “pound sterling” mean
that the British banks really care more about silver? Another standout
exception is Brazil, which has tiny gold reserves compared with its GDP. Its
$2.5 trillion in GDP ranks sixth in the world, yet it holds only 33.6 tonnes of
gold, or 0.5% of foreign reserves. Brazil ranks a surprising 52nd in the world
among gold holders.
The
International Monetary Fund is the third-largest official holder of gold, with
more than 2,814 tonnes. The European Central Bank ranks right behind India,
with 502.1 tonnes and 32.3% of its total foreign reserves held in gold. Central
bank buying of gold was recently undertaken by Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the
Kyrgyz Republic. Turkey went as far as raising the gold reserve requirements for
its commercial banks.
The World Gold Council report shows low
borrowing costs and the support of financial markets spur gold accumulation.
Gold is no longer just an inflation hedge; it is the key protection against a
global race to devalue currencies, even if consumer prices are somewhat stable.
Bonds pay historically low rates and stock market volatility has spooked many
investors, so gold is becoming the true safe haven.
More
We end for
today, with “good news” from China. China’s slowdown has evaporated pricing
power for Chinese manufacturers. “Reduced
inflation pressure should expand the space for policy makers to take pro-growth
actions in their countries,” said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at
Mizuho in Hong Kong. Uncoded, yet more scope for more QE and voodoo pump
priming. Stay long precious metals, ahead of the great scramble for physical
gold and silver.
China’s Factories Losing Pricing Power in Earnings Threat
By Bloomberg News - Oct 23, 2012 3:45 AM GMT
Chinese factories are losing pricing power in the worst wholesale-cost
deflation since 2009, signalling corporate earnings may deteriorate further and
putting a damper on global inflation pressures.
---- The producer-price index (SHCOMP) fell 3.6 percent in September from a year earlier and may stay negative until the second half of 2013 without large stimulus, according to Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd.
With the U.S. reporting the longest stretch in three years that Chinese imports have gone without a price increase, the trend also gives policy makers around the world more room for easing to support faltering global growth. Sluggish earnings growth may prompt the government to reduce corporate taxes to aid earnings and help boost spending after China’s expansion slowed for a seventh quarter.
“Reduced inflation pressure should expand the space for policy makers to take pro-growth actions in their countries,” said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho in Hong Kong. Chinese officials are likely to reduce banks’ reserve requirements ahead of a Communist Party congress next month, said Shen, who formerly worked at the International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.
Chinese industrial companies’ profits dropped 6.2 percent in August from a year earlier, the largest decline this year and the fifth straight monthly deceleration, a statistics bureau report showed last month. Data for September are due Oct. 27.
Last month’s 3.6 percent drop in wholesale prices from a year earlier was the seventh straight decline and biggest since October 2009.
More
"We need only take our heads out of the sand to see clearly that interventionism not only has failed to provide the promised something-for-nothing, but has led to all sorts of undesirable consequences. Indeed, many are just beginning to realize that we are moving towards disaster even though we have been on a wrong heading for decades."
Leonard Read
At the Comex silver depositories Monday final figures were: Registered 36.88 Moz,
Eligible 104.97 Moz, Total 141.85 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent,
the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, “I am not an extra,” sniffs the man who replaced French President Bling. When De Gaulle ran the old pre-UK entry EEC, when they ran up the French tri-colour everyone else had to salute twice. In the new poisonous Europe of the ill thought out European Monetary Union, President Hollande seems to want those days to return. Stay long precious metals, this bad tempered EMU will not last. Spain is just bail-able Italy is not. But France has now put itself on suicide watch. The EMU will collapse with the fall of France, though probably before. Germany and France now have different agendas, timetables, and a settling of old scores. Someone on the German delegation fed all this acrimonious stuff to Der Spiegel. 2013 can only be worse than 2012.
"Gold would have value if for no other reason than that it enables a citizen to fashion his financial escape from the state."
William F. Rickenbacker
10/22/2012
Parallel Universes in Paris and Berlin Is the Franco-German Axis Kaput?
The most recent European
Union summit exposed deep differences between German Chancellor Angela Merkel
and French President François Hollande. Berlin wants Brussels to be bestowed
with greater power over national budgets and Paris is calling for an
end to austerity. The dispute threatens to intensify the euro crisis.
----It was last Thursday evening in the
somber government building in Brussels. The leaders of the 27 European Union
countries had just convened for a crisis summit when German Chancellor Angela
Merkel surprised them with a novel proposal. What if everyone at the summit
would fly to Oslo together in December to jointly accept the Nobel Peace Prize,
as a sign of European unity?
The other European leaders' reactions were reserved. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said that it ought to be sufficient for the heads of the European Commission, European Council and European Parliament to make the trip. British Prime Minister David Cameron proposed sending a child from every member state to Oslo. Finally, though, the issue was decided when French President François Hollande rejected the idea of a joint trip altogether, when he said caustically: "I'm not an extra."
Europe's most powerful political team is unable to find a common denominator, from the question of who should be picking up prizes or, more tellingly, to the much broader issue of rescuing the euro. At the Brussels summit last week, Merkel and Hollande, after arguing for hours, agreed on a slim formulaic compromise on the banking union, while all other contentious issues remained unresolved.
Since the
days of former German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and former French President
Charles de Gaulle, Germany and France have generally been run by politicians
who placed more value on unity than their differences. The axis between former
German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former French President Valéry d'Estaing
axis proved to be just as resilient as the partnership between their
successors, Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterand.
Under
Merkel and Hollande, however, the German-French partnership threatens to
deteriorate into nothing but a façade. The two politicians, who hold the fate
of the continent in their hands, greet each other politely with kisses on the
cheek, and their respective public relations staffs extol their
"professional" and "trusting" cooperation.
In truth,
however, the relationship began on a cool note and has since slipped below the
freezing point. Hollande doesn't want to forgive Merkel for having campaigned
for his conservative opponent, former President Nicolas Sarkozy. Now the
Chancellery suspects that Hollande is secretly planning a campaign for Merkel's
challenger from the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), former Finance
Minister Peer Steinbrück.
Mistrust
shapes the relationship between Paris and Berlin, on issues ranging from future
European bank regulation to the joint aerospace and defense group EADS and the
future architecture of Europe. Hollande suspects that Berlin is using budget
consolidation as an excuse to gain European dominance. Merkel notes with unease
that Hollande is joining forces with Rome and Madrid to form a joint axis
against Germany.
Last
Monday, a joint interview with the French president at the Elysée Palace given
to six European newspapers offered a sense of how deep the divide is. In the
one-hour meeting, Hollande not only criticized German policies more sharply
than he ever has before since taking office, but he also rebuffed Merkel's
austerity course. "It is France's task to tirelessly tell our partners
that there are alternatives to a policy of austerity," Hollande said.
More
"With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people."
F.A. von Hayek
The monthly
Coppock Indicators finished September:
DJIA: +66 Up. NASDAQ: +88 DOWN. SP500: +85 Up. All
three indicators had reversed from down to up, but now the NASDAQ has reversed
again to down. While not unprecedented, it is a warning sign a that the July
reversal from up to down is about to fail.
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