Baltic Dry Index. 1099 -04
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"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
Increasingly it looks like the Great Nixonian Error
of Fiat Money has finally met its match in the Great Bernanke Mistake of ending
QE forever. No he hasn’t actually ended it, and in my opinion neither he nor
anyone at the Fed, or for that matter at the BOE, can end QE once it’s started,
but what the not so infallible “Bernank” did, was leak to his favourite hack at
Murdoch’s WSJ that he was about to try. Worse he did it in such a way that
bondholders actually believed him! A 32 year bond bull market was ending, and
that however many U-turns and Mea Culpas Bernocchio might make, after a 32 year
run in a one way street, it doesn’t pay to stay around to see the old academic
fraudster try to reopen the street to two way traffic. For more on the coming
greatest bond crash of all time, scroll down to Crooks Corner. The benefits of
fiat money were all front loaded and long since dissipated.
Up first, Friday’s “good news” that trumped the
Bernanke bluff. Though the good news
isn’t all that it was spun, it was enough to frighten the ladies and the
horses. Getting out first, might still leave a little cash on the table for the
truly desperate pigs, but it does ensure survival once the bubble bursts. The
32 year long Volker Bond Bubble is massively long. Bernanke and Co are now
caught up in their own deception. Either the US economy is recovering like the
good news is spun and in which case the next move in bonds is down as yields
rise, probably for years, or the spin
must be undone and the economy stalled again, in which case the Fed must plow
on with QE forever, forever. It will not be long before America and Europe
approach their Tahrir Square moment.
"The fate of the nation and the fate of the currency are one and the same."
Dr. Franz Pick
U.S. Employers Added More Workers in June Than Forecast
By Lorraine Woellert - 2013-07-05T20:11:40Z
Employment roared ahead in June, indicating the U.S. economy is poised for
faster growth as it shakes off the impact of tax increases and budget cuts.
Payrolls rose by 195,000 workers for a second month, the Labor Department reported today in Washington, exceeding the 165,000 gain projected by economists in a Bloomberg survey. The jobless rate stayed at 7.6 percent, close to a four-year low.
Hourly earnings in the year ended in June advanced by the most since July 2011, giving Americans already buoyed by higher home prices more reason to boost household spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy. Stocks climbed, while the yield on 10-year Treasuries rose to the highest in almost two years on expectations the Federal Reserve will start trimming $85 billion in monthly bond purchases in September.
“Job growth is starting to hum along,” said Jonathan Basile, director of U.S. economics at Credit Suisse Holdings USA in New York. “All of it is laying the groundwork for more spending and more jobs. This virtuous cycle is really taking hold for the second half of the year.”
----Revisions added 70,000 jobs to the employment counts in April and May. Gains in private employment overcame declines in government payrolls. Private payrolls increased 202,000 in June after a 207,000 gain the prior month.
Retailers,
professional and business services, health care, and leisure and hospitality
businesses led the gains in June.
----Factories (USMMMNCH) reduced payrolls by 6,000 in June, while construction companies added 13,000, the most in three months, today’s report showed. Automakers boosted employment by 5,100 workers, the most in four months.
Hiring at auto dealerships and home-improvement outlets boosted retail payrolls.
New cars and trucks sold in June at the fastest pace since 2007 as American drivers replaced aging vehicles and a rebound in housing construction moved trucks off dealer lots. That helped new car sales beat estimates last month, giving a lift to General Motors Co (GM). and Ford Motor Co. (F) Brisk sales are boosting hiring at dealerships
More
India’s Rupee Plunges to Record as Fed Risk May Worsen Outflows
By Jeanette Rodrigues - Jul 8, 2013 5:03 AM GMT
India’s rupee fell to a record after a U.S. jobs report showing companies
hired more workers than economists forecast added to the case for the Federal
Reserve to reduce monetary stimulus. The currency dropped the most in almost two weeks as U.S. payrolls rose by 195,000 workers for a second month in June, the Labor Department reported July 5 in Washington, exceeding the 165,000 median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. The Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against six major trading partners, rose to the highest level since July 2010. Global funds have pulled $7.6 billion from Indian bonds since holdings touched an all-time high on May 21.
“The data could lead to outflows from
all emerging
markets,” said Vikas Babu, a trader at state-run Andhra Bank (ANDB) in Mumbai. “The central bank could come
in and intervene to protect key levels.”
More
In Euroland, if it wasn’t for bad news there’d be
no news at all. Below German imposed austerity and serfdom on the Club Med
Latin bloc comes home to roost in the Fatherland. Add Germany to the growing
list of nations now in an economic wobble.
"Sooner or later both the Greek population and international creditors will tire of fighting a losing battle, leading to a break-up of the currency union as Greece pulls out, probably followed by other countries"
Douglas McWilliams, chief executive of the Centre of Economics and Business Research.
German exports fall at steepest rate since December 2009
BERLIN |(Reuters) - German exports had their biggest fall since late 2009 in May while imports rose far more than expected, in a sign that Europe's largest economy is struggling to sell its goods abroad though domestic demand is strong.
Seasonally-adjusted exports tumbled 2.4 percent, data from the Federal Statistics Office showed, falling further than the consensus forecast in a Reuters poll for a 0.4 percent drop and undershooting even the lowest estimate for a 1.2 percent fall.
Shipments abroad, traditionally the backbone of the German economy, are suffering this year as the euro zone crisis eats away at demand in Europe, Germany's largest export market, while a slowdown in China reduces appetite in the country many German firms had looked to as an alternative.
More
German Factory Orders Drop as Euro-Area Economy Struggles
By Stefan
Riecher - Jul 5, 2013 1:21 PM GMT
German factory orders unexpectedly declined for a second month in May in a
sign that the euro area’s struggle to emerge from its longest-ever recession is
disrupting the recovery in Europe’s largest economy. Orders (GRIORTMM), adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, dropped 1.3 percent from April, when they fell a revised 2.2 percent, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said today. Economists forecast a gain of 1.2 percent, according to the median of 42 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Orders slid 2 percent from a year ago, when adjusted for the number of working days.
----“German industry
still has difficulties to return to full strength,” said Carsten Brzeski, senior
economist at ING in Brussels. “Still-reasonably filled order books should
ensure a gradual pick-up in industrial production. However, the medium-term
outlook is not yet looking rosy.”
----Germany’s
domestic orders declined 2 percent in May from the prior month, today’s report
showed. Overseas demand shrank 0.7 percent, with orders from the euro area
slumping 3.9 percent. Orders for basic goods fell 0.1 percent from April, while
investment-goods orders slid 1.8 percent. Demand for consumer goods dropped 3.1
percent, with orders from the euro area down 5.7 percent.
----Germany’s VDMA machine makers’
association cut its 2013 production forecast yesterday to a contraction of 1
percent from expected growth of 2 percent.
More
Greece seeks £7bn aid as £42bn tax is lost
Greece was expected to reach a deal with foreign lenders on its latest bail-out review before eurozone finance ministers meet on Monday to decide on further aid.
Athens
has been in talks with inspectors from the European Union, European Central
Bank and International Monetary Fund “Troika” for nearly a week to show it can
deliver on its pledges, after failing to meet public-sector reform targets.
Greece
hopes eurozone finance ministers will free up its next €8.1bn (£7bn) tranche of
aid on Monday morning because it needs part of the money to redeem about €2.2bn
of bonds next month. The latest loan instalment is one of the last big cash
injections that Greece stands to get as part of a €240bn rescue package that
expires at the end of 2014.
The moves
coincided with news that more than two thirds of the amount Greece is owed in
back taxes by its citizens will probably never be recovered.
The
country’s new senior tax collector, Haris Theoharis, told The Daily
Telegraph that up to €42bn in taxes and other monies owed to the state
would have to be written off as “uncollectable”. The debts are due to the
failure of successive Greek administrations to enforce tax collection properly,
and have played a significant part in the Greek government’s financial
meltdown. Most of it is owed by companies or individuals who are variously
defunct, deceased, bankrupt or otherwise unlikely to be able to pay.
---Bailed out twice
by its foreign lenders, Greece relies on foreign aid to keep afloat. Failure to
successfully conclude its bail-out review could push it close to bankruptcy
once again, triggering a new upsurge in the eurozone crisis.
----Among reforms being negotiated are 4,000 state jobs, which would have to go by the end of the year, a pledge which had been made by Athens. Greece must also redeploy 25,000 civil servants across its vast bureaucracy. These include some 2,000 teachers, whom Athens has proposed to move to other services.
Another
3,500 local police are to be incorporated in the national forces, a move that
has sparked strong opposition from local administrative staff.
Meanwhile,
in Portugal, the prime minister said foreign minister Paulo
Portas, whose resignation last week sparked a political crisis, would
remain in government and get a bigger role under a deal to hold the ruling
coalition together.
Germany’s
central bank chief, Jens Weidmann, said the ECB cannot solve the eurozone
crisis, pressing the bloc’s governments to get their economies in shape and
tighten their fiscal rules.
“Monetary
policy has already done a lot to absorb the economic consequences of the
crisis, but it cannot solve the crisis,” he said. “The crisis has laid bare
structural shortcomings. As such, they require structural solutions.”
In East Asia, it’s a tale of two cities. Beijing is desperately trying to reign in the shadow banking system, yet still keep the doctored GDP figures showing annual growth of a minimum of 7.5%. In Tokyo, it’s all about extreme voodoo economics as Japan’s Prime Minister Abe seeks to deliberately weaken the Yen to enable Japan’s export conglomerates to steal orders from Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. A 1930s “beggar they neighbour” policy it may be, but so far so good as far as Japan is concerned. Japan’s locals have started spending again, fearing more Yen destruction to come, and so far Japan’s trade and currency war has brought in new orders.
For now, the big scare is the size and growth of the Chinese wobble. With China already nudging interest rates higher, the last thing they needed was old loose lips Bernanke to start feeding the Wall Street Journal that he was about to start doing the same thing. Shell shocked and gun shy, the international bond market turned in the last month into a paranoid troop of surrender monkeys, ready to bail out on the first hint of trouble.
"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit (debt) expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit (debt) expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."Ludwig von Mises
Asia Stocks Drop on Fed Stimulus, China Lending Concern
By Adam Haigh - Jul 8, 2013 6:56 AM GMT
Asian stocks dropped the most in two weeks amid concern a
credit squeeze in China
will curb growth and after a better-than-forecast U.S. jobs report fueled
concern that the Federal Reserve may begin reducing stimulus this
year. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s biggest mining company, fell 1.8 percent in Sydney as metals prices retreated the most in two months. Asiana Airlines Inc. tumbled 5.7 percent in Seoul after one of its planes crashed at San Francisco International Airport. Zijin Mining Group Co. (2899) dropped 7 percent in Hong Kong after China’s biggest gold miner by market value said profit may slump as much as 55 percent.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid 1.5 percent to 129.35 as of 1:52 p.m. in Hong Kong, with more than four shares falling for each that rose. All 10 industry groups on the gauge retreated.
More
China Cash Squeeze Seen Creating Vietnam-Size Credit Hole
By Bloomberg News - Jul 8, 2013 6:00 AM GMT
China’s
money-market cash squeeze is likely to reduce credit growth this year by 750 billion yuan ($122
billion), an amount equivalent to the size of Vietnam’s
economy, according to a Bloomberg News survey. The number is the median estimate of 15 analysts, whose projections last week ranged from cuts of 20 billion yuan to 3 trillion yuan. The majority of respondents also said they approve of the government’s handling of the credit crunch and said the episode reinforces their expectations for policy reforms such as loosening controls on interest rates.
June credit data due as soon as this week will give investors clues to how much the cash squeeze, which sent interbank borrowing costs soaring to records last month, is affecting the world’s second-biggest economy.
Whether a slowdown extends into the second half may hinge on how effectively Premier Li Keqiang can redirect funding after his clampdown on speculation.
“The liquidity crunch has increased downside risks,” said Louis Kuijs, chief China economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in Hong Kong, who estimates it will reduce aggregate credit by 1.8 trillion yuan this year.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-07/china-cash-squeeze-seen-creating-vietnam-size-credit-hole.html
China Admits Local Govt Debt Levels Unknown, Could Be Higher Than Estimated
By REUTERS Published: July 5, 2013 at 4:43 AM ET
BEIJING — A senior Chinese official said on Friday that the
government did not know precisely know how much debt local governments had
built up and warned that it could be more than previous estimates.
Estimates
of local government debt range from Standard Chartered's 15 percent of the
country's GDP at end-2012 to Credit Suisse's 36 percent. Fitch put the figure
at 25 percent when it downgraded China's sovereign debt rating in April.
Vice
Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said China had not released official figures
since a 2010 auditing report that put local government debt at 10.7 trillion
yuan.
"Currently,
nationwide surveys, I think this number will rise,"
Zhu said, defending the debt as mostly geared toward fuelling infrastructure
projects.
"A
very important task for this administration is to clearly determine the level
of local financing platforms," Zhu told reporters at a press briefing on
high-level talks with U.S. officials in Washington next week.
Dealing
with the systemic risk posed by local government debt is seen as one of the key
priorities for the administration of China's new president, Xi Jinping.
More
Chinese banking: a Wild West in the Far East?
China’s banks are now the biggest in the world but fears are growing they are very unstable, writes Harry Wilson.
As
Government ministers ponder whether to split Royal Bank of Scotland into a
“good bank” and a “bad bank”, it is worth remembering that China did something
similar with not one big lender, but four at the turn of the millennium.
In
October 1999, a month before Fred Goodwin began his ill-fated reign as chief
executive of RBS, the Chinese government created four massive “asset management
companies” that would eventually take on toxic loans valued at $480bn (£320bn).
Thirteen
years on, these bad banks still exist, operating out of office blocks dotted
around Beijing and Hong Kong, and continue to hold non-performing loans worth
Rmb1.7 trillion (£180bn), according to credit rating agency Moody’s.
Largely
unknown to the outside world, they are a reminder that China’s banking system
remains as prone to boom and bust as any Western economy and perhaps more so.
As the
rescue showed, the “Big Four” banks were, and are, not just “too big to fail”,
but the beating heart of the entire Chinese economic system, controlling nearly
half the country’s $19 trillion of financial assets.
Taken together, the four largest lenders, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China have a combined market capitalisation of £470bn, about £200bn more than the total value of Britain’s five largest lenders.
ICBC alone has 393m individual customers, the equivalent of a single bank managing the bank accounts of every man, woman and child in western Europe, and this year became the first Chinese lender to top The Banker magazine’s annual table of the world’s biggest banks by market value, with a total capitalisation of $236bn. Ranking the world’s banks by profits made, the top four positions are now taken by China’s behemoths. Hold on everyone, the Chinese are not coming, they have arrived.
Despite
paying negative savings rates — the 3.5pc base rate interest on Chinese deposit
accounts is generally believed to be well below the real rate of inflation —
70pc of Chinese household wealth is held in cash and bank deposits. Just over a
third of India’s private wealth is kept in its banking system.
With this
largely captive market, citizens’ savings have been used to fund an
infrastructure and property boom on an unprecedented scale and led to warnings
of an asset bubble.
While
official figures show a 113pc increase in property prices in the past eight
years, research by Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore
found prices actually rose by 250pc between 2004 and 2009, a faster increase
than was experienced by the US in the lead to the sub-prime crisis.
Carson
Block, of Muddy Waters Research, which has laid bare several accounting
scandals in Chinese companies, thinks the problems in China’s banking system
are more severe than those which kick-started the global crash in 2008. “We
believe that the domestic Chinese banking system is a mess, with an enormous
amount of bad loans, or loans waiting to go bad. The problems of China’s
lenders are greater than those of Western banks on the eve of the financial
crisis,” he says.
"All of the government's monetary, economic and political power, as well as its extensive propaganda machinery, will be enlisted in a constant battle to drive down the price of gold - but in the absence of any fundamental change in the nation's monetary, fiscal, and economic direction, simply regard any major retreat in the price of gold as an unexpected buying opportunity."
Irwin A. Schiff
At the Comex silver depositories Friday final figures were: Registered 46.94 Moz,
Eligible 119.91 Moz, Total 165.75 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
It’s all downhill from here into an anarchic bout
of fiat money disintegration. Stay long physical precious metals for the end
game. The massive flow of gold from west to east is set to accelerate.
"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
Mispricing Risk
July 5, 2013 Doug Noland
Bonds
taken out to the woodshed, again.
U.S. bonds were crushed Friday on the back of stronger-than-expected payroll data. Long-bond yields jumped 21 bps to an almost 23-month high 3.71%. Ten-year yields rose 24 bps to 2.74% - the highest level since August 5, 2011. Benchmark MBS yields surged 30 bps during the session to a 23-month high 3.69%. The spread between 10-year Treasury yields and benchmark MBS widened six on Friday to a one-year high 95 bps. Notably, MBS yields were up 75 bps in 14 sessions and 140 bps since May 1st.
U.S. bonds were crushed Friday on the back of stronger-than-expected payroll data. Long-bond yields jumped 21 bps to an almost 23-month high 3.71%. Ten-year yields rose 24 bps to 2.74% - the highest level since August 5, 2011. Benchmark MBS yields surged 30 bps during the session to a 23-month high 3.69%. The spread between 10-year Treasury yields and benchmark MBS widened six on Friday to a one-year high 95 bps. Notably, MBS yields were up 75 bps in 14 sessions and 140 bps since May 1st.
With
unprecedented outflows from the bond complex coupled with notable global
central bank selling, the Bubble in U.S. fixed income would appear in serious
jeopardy. And while analysts and money managers will continue talk of a “fair
value” range for Treasury securities, for the time being flow of funds analysis
trumps valuation. Will foreign central banks continue reducing their enormous
holdings of U.S. Treasury and Agency securities? How much leverage has
accumulated throughout U.S. fixed income – especially in corporates, MBS and
municipal debt? How long until some hedge funds are in trouble? Redemptions
coming? Derivative problems? Will investors continue their retreat from U.S.
fixed income mutual funds and ETFs?
A few data points are in order. Since the end of 2007, Rest of World (ROW from the Fed’s Z.1) Treasury holdings have jumped $3.325 TN, or 140%, to $5.701 TN. Over this period, “Official” central bank Treasury holdings were up $2.233 TN, or 134%, to $4.059 TN. I have previously highlighted the extraordinary expansion of central bank International Reserve Assets (as accumulated by Bloomberg). Since the end of 2007, International Reserves have inflated $5.061 TN, or 84%, to $11.122 TN. The Fed’s $85bn monthly QE suddenly doesn’t seem as powerful.
A few data points are in order. Since the end of 2007, Rest of World (ROW from the Fed’s Z.1) Treasury holdings have jumped $3.325 TN, or 140%, to $5.701 TN. Over this period, “Official” central bank Treasury holdings were up $2.233 TN, or 134%, to $4.059 TN. I have previously highlighted the extraordinary expansion of central bank International Reserve Assets (as accumulated by Bloomberg). Since the end of 2007, International Reserves have inflated $5.061 TN, or 84%, to $11.122 TN. The Fed’s $85bn monthly QE suddenly doesn’t seem as powerful.
Ongoing
selling by foreign central banks could be driven by two key dynamics. First,
one would think (thinly capitalized) central banks would seek to contain losses
on their outsized bond holdings. Keep in mind that the higher bond yields jump,
the more individual central banks will need to monitor the scope of losses and
the degree of capital impairment. Second, “developing” central banks will most
likely be forced to sell Treasuries and other bond holdings to fund investor
and “hot money” flows exiting their markets and economies.
A
prominent bullish view has held that emerging market (EM) central banks built
up robust international reserve positions (including large quantities of
Treasuries) that would be available to backstop their systems in the event of
global market turbulence. Well, a surge of outflows (and currency market
intervention) coupled with a spike in yields is now in the process of depleting
reserves much more quickly than anyone had anticipated. There is a clear
possibility that we’re early in what could be unprecedented flows seeking to
exit the faltering EMs. Recalling the 1997 SE Asian experience, it was a case
of “those who panicked first panicked best.” The more reserve positions were
depleted, the faster “hot money” ran to the rapidly closing exits.
As
a rough guide, the pain and dislocation associated with a bursting Bubble are
commensurate with the degree of excess during the preceding boom (traditional
“Austrian”-type analysis). And I’ll be the first to admit this is not the first
occasion I’ve believed the U.S./global bond Bubble was in trouble. Timing a
Bubble’s demise is always a challenge (at best) – especially in an environment
of epic central bank liquidity support. But this time has a different feel to
it.
Importantly, the longer the inevitable day of reckoning is delayed the worse the consequences. Years of aggressive market intervention ensured a most protracted period of unprecedented excess – excesses that encompassed virtually all markets and all risk categories. Perhaps Federal Reserve policymaking ensured that the greatest Bubble excess and market distortions materialized in perceived low-risk (fixed income and equities) strategies.
“The danger of mispricing risk is that there is no way out without investors taking losses. And the longer the process continues, the bigger those losses could be. That’s why the Fed should start tapering this summer before financial market distortions become even more damaging.” Martin Feldstein, Wall Street Journal op-ed, July 2, 2013
Importantly, the longer the inevitable day of reckoning is delayed the worse the consequences. Years of aggressive market intervention ensured a most protracted period of unprecedented excess – excesses that encompassed virtually all markets and all risk categories. Perhaps Federal Reserve policymaking ensured that the greatest Bubble excess and market distortions materialized in perceived low-risk (fixed income and equities) strategies.
“The danger of mispricing risk is that there is no way out without investors taking losses. And the longer the process continues, the bigger those losses could be. That’s why the Fed should start tapering this summer before financial market distortions become even more damaging.” Martin Feldstein, Wall Street Journal op-ed, July 2, 2013
More
"When paper money systems begin to crack at the seams, the run to gold could be explosive."
Harry Browne.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished June:
DJIA: +145 Up. NASDAQ: +146 Up. SP500: +177 Unch The Fed’s
Final Bubble continues, but is struggling. The S&P500 moved sideways. The Dow and
Nasdaq both barely eked out a gain. In current highly volatile conditions and
controversial uncertain policy indecision at the Fed, Speculators would stay
long, investors would exit stocks for now or get fully hedged.
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