Baltic Dry Index. 931 -04
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
Then the s**t hit the fan.
J. K. Galbraith.
Note, the next update will be on Monday April 1,
2013.
Today, Europe’s need of a one-eyed man. Who knew that when fallen “Super Mario”
Draghi pledged last year to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro, that
included destroying the euro’s safety as a reserve currency, by virtue of
trashing the eurozone’s deposit guarantee, before then coming up with the
better idea of stealing most of the Cyprus bank deposits above the guarantee,
on the curious logic that these deposits mostly belonged to the Russian mafia,
or retired British pensioners living in Cyprus, or Cypriot businesses working
capital! At a stroke the safety of all bank deposits across Euroland was put
into question, since when Italy and France fail, and they will, all of Europe’s
bank deposits will be needed under the “whatever it takes,” “we’ve got to
destroy this town to save it” ECB doctrine.
Stay long physical precious metals held outside of
an EU bank, and if European, keep some cash in the mattress. Our funny old world in the Great Nixonian
Error of fiat money, just got a whole lot funnier this week, although for the serfs
of the PIIGS plus the Cypriots, it just got a whole lot scarier, poorer and
uglier. Some unelected elitist bigshots in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin, can
now steal the bank deposit savings of a lifetime, at any time that they feel
that saving the euro requires it. Only the brain dead will continue keeping
much cash deposited into any of Club Med’s banks. UK pensioners retired into Spain
will quickly move most of their bank deposits back to UK banks not subject to
ECB expropriation. Wealthy French and Italians will quietly but quickly open
accounts in Switzerland, London and New York.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by
spectacular error.
J. K. Galbraith.
Updated
March 26, 2013, 4:12 p.m. ET
BlackRock Cuts Spain, Italy Sovereign-Bond Holdings
BlackRock Inc., BLK +2.62% the world's largest money manager, has cut holdings of Italy and Spain government bonds over the past three months. The firm may shed more if the euro-zone's growth outlook deteriorates."We have been less enthusiastic about euro-zone sovereign debt compared to three to six months ago," said Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of fundamental fixed income and co-head of Americas fixed income at BlackRock. "If growth continues to deteriorate in the euro zone, due in large measure to weak private-sector lending from a deleveraging banking sector, we would further reduce our positions in the euro zone, such as in Italy and Spain."
Speaking in a phone interview with The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Mr. Rieder said for the moment, BlackRock still holds an overweight position on Italy and Spain, though the position is now more moderate after the recent reduction in the Spanish and Italian holdings.
The company, with more than $3.7 trillion in assets under management, was among global investors scooping up sovereign bonds, especially in Italy, after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi last summer pledged to do "whatever it takes" to preserve the euro
More
March 26, 2013, 8:09 p.m. ET
Euro's Bears Go Back on Prowl
Investors
are turning against the euro—again.
Some say
the common currency is due for a correction in light of the latest round of
flare-ups in the euro zone, including Sunday's last-minute deal to save Cyprus'
banking sector and Italy's political stalemate following elections last month.
These
euro bears predict the currency will head to $1.20 or lower if a fresh crisis
causes investors to dump European assets. The European Central Bank also could
buy sovereign bonds to calm markets, which would weaken the euro because it
would involve printing money. The euro traded Tuesday at $1.2860, roughly
unchanged.
More
Next, coming soon to banks in Portugal, Spain,
Italy and France. Probably Luxembourg and Belgium too.
“With
banks closed since March 15 and looming capital controls many Cypriot companies
are having problems paying salaries or suppliers as the economy is strangled by
the lack of credit facilities.”
Cypriots braced for harsh banking curbs
Cypriots face draconian controls over how they spend their money, use debit cards or access their savings lasting beyond May as Cyprus tries to stop capital flight ahead of inflicting major losses on depositors at the island’s biggest bank.
By Bruno
Waterfield in Brussels and Nick Squires in Nicosia 5:30PM GMT 26 Mar 2013
The
country faced new fears of a financial meltdown on Tuesday after the chairman
of the Bank of Cyprus, the country’s biggest lender, resigned and banks which
been shut for 11 days stayed closed until Thursday.
George
Osborne, the Chancellor, pledged on Tuesday, that the government would help the
13,000 British-based customers of the Cypriot Popular Bank, known as Laiki in
Greek, who could lose all their savings above the €100,000 (£85,000) after it
was closed down this week.
“The
Treasury is working with the Cypriot authorities on a British solution to the
branch of the Cyprus Popular Bank,” he told MPs. "Discussions are taking
place at the moment. We are engaged in negotiations to try to avoid the
branches in the UK becoming sucked into the Cypriot resolution process.”
The Chancellor
also said that the government had flown cash to Cyprus to help military
personnel on the island's two British bases.
"We
have flown €13m to Cyprus this weekend to help with our military presence
there...and to provide if we need it a hardship fund," he said.
----Andrew Tyrie,the chairman of House of Commons Treasury Committee, asked the Chancellor to make diplomatic representations about the "terrible farrago" in Cyprus.
"By
general agreement this is a god-awful mess, really atrocious. About as appalling
mismanagement as it's possible to imagine," he said.
Cypriot
capital controls that are unprecedented in modern banking will include a tight
weekly personal allowance for cash withdrawals, restrictions on moving euros
outside Cyprus, new lower limits on credit or debit cards and a ban on cheques.
Additionally
fixed-term deposits will have to be held until maturity and the Cypriot central
bank will have the power to take any measure it sees fit to stop a run on
financial institutions in the first attempt to stop all unauthorised capital
movements in the era of 21st century electronic banking.
Michael
Sarris, the Cypriot finance ministers, admitted that capital controls were “not
a good idea” that threatened to strangle the economy but insisted they were necessary
after the eurozone demanded that banks in Cyprus are restructured as a
condition for a €10 billion bailout.
----The capital restrictions pose a threat of economic strangulation in Cyprus and are expected to stay in force until the entry into force of a “memorandum of understanding” (MOU), still to be agreed between the eurozone, International Monetary Fund and the island.
EU
sources have told The Daily Telegraph that the MOU will not be ready until the
third week of April, at earliest, for national approval meaning that the period
of uncertainty and capital controls will drag on into May.
Restrictions
could continue well beyond then for savers at the Bank of Cyprus and for other
Cypriot financial institutions if the authorities are worried that the
implementation of 40pc or higher losses could trigger capital flight.
More
Euro Risks Drop Toward Parity on No Growth, Morgan Stanley Says
By Candice Zachariahs - Mar 27, 2013 3:28 AM GMT
The euro risks dropping toward parity with the U.S. dollar
over the next 2 1/2 years as the region enacts policies aimed at weakening the
currency to bolster growth, Morgan Stanley said. The 17-nation euro, which has slid 2.6 percent this year, will continue to decline as the bailout package for Cyprus fans concern about the safety of bank deposits in the region, Hans- Guenter Redeker, the head of global currency strategy at Morgan Stanley, said in an interview yesterday in Sydney. Italy’s struggle to form a government after last month’s divided vote will also weaken the euro, he said.
“This policy concerning Cyprus, people will be getting more concerned in funding the peripheral, providing deposits there,” Redeker said. “The long-term implication is that monetary transition in Europe is not working, there’s no credit, no growth, and fiscal policy is still fragmented. So, therefore, you need to be fairly pessimistic for the outlook.”
More
Who
is king in the world of the blind when there isn't even a one eyed man?
J. K.
Galbraith.
At the Comex silver depositories Tuesday final figures were: Registered 43.12
Moz, Eligible 121.64 Moz, Total 164.76 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Tomorrow, the great
experiment begins. My guess is that it all ends in failure, with Cyprus leaving
the euro zone later in the year.
The
study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which
complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.
J. K.
Galbraith.
Cyprus Capital Controls First in EU Could Last Years
By Yalman Onaran - Mar 27, 2013 1:00 AM GMT
Cyprus is on the verge of an unprecedented financial experiment: imposing
controls on money transfers in an economy that doesn’t have its own currency. Countries from Argentina to Iceland have used similar measures in the past to defend against devaluation. Being part of the euro zone may make it harder for the Mediterranean island to enforce restrictions, as any money that leaves the banking system can be taken out of Cyprus without losing value.
That also may make it more difficult to meet the goal set yesterday by Finance Minister Michael Sarris to lift any controls in “a matter of weeks.” When economies in Asia and Latin America tried to stem the outflow of money in the 1980s and 1990s, they ended up keeping the measures in effect for six months to two years. Iceland, another island nation with an outsize banking system, still has capital controls five years after its banks collapsed in 2008.
“Thanks to political mismanagement, we now have a first: capital controls in the euro zone,” said Nicolas Veron, a senior fellow at Bruegel in Brussels and a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “How long is temporary? It could turn out like Iceland, extending to many years.”
----Parliament last week gave wide-ranging powers to the central bank governor, Panicos Demetriades, and Finance Minister Sarris, including the ability to limit daily withdrawals and force the renewal of time deposits upon maturity. The two officials also can restrict the opening of new accounts, credit- or debit-card use, wire transfers among the branches of the same bank and non-cash transactions.
“They’re going to need some serious controls to make sure the money doesn’t leave the country,” said Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, a London-based strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “Otherwise, I can’t see how any of this money with a high propensity to leave will stay voluntarily.”
A rush of money
out of Cyprus would shift more financing responsibility to the European
Central Bank, which provides about 10 billion euros of emergency loans to
the country’s lenders. After 30 billion euros, the ECB would have to lower its
standards for the collateral it demands from Cypriot banks, Panigirtzoglou
said. With deposit flight and rising loan losses in Cyprus and Greece, the ECB
could lose money on the funds it lends.
----When
Iceland imposed capital controls after a property bubble burst and its banks
collapsed, political leaders said they would be temporary, too.
More
Happy Easter everyone. Normal service resumes on April Fool’s Day.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February:
DJIA: +111 Up. NASDAQ: +129 Up. SP500: +148 Up. All three indexes are giving the same signal since
January, up, but surprisingly February’s
move in all three was weak, suggesting that the indicators are topping
out. Will sequestration turn March into a
down month? So far so good.
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