Baltic Dry Index. 1136 -10
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Plato.
After last night’s dramatic and unexpected
vote against war by Britain’s House of Commons, it’s only war against Syria delayed
this morning, although for Great Britain it’s war called off. There is simply
no support for a Syrian war among the British public, nor any clear picture of
what a bombing campaign will achieve, nor how anyone would know when we had
won. Sadly forcing regime change in Syria isn’t guaranteed to produce a better
outcome than the Assad’s. However, President Obama can hardly reverse himself.
Having declared his “red line” crossed, he can hardly call off regime change
now, even if John Bull has got cold feet and is staying home. No word yet if
the French will now pull out or if they’re all in for yet more death and
destruction in Syria.
Below, old fashioned UK democracy in action,
unlike when Blair blatantly lied the House of Commons into a disastrous war in
Iraq. Sadly for the ordinary people of Syria, the UK’s contribution to the
coming onslaught was minimal and irrelevant. It all comes down to America and
how much force president Obama decides to commit and for how long. For now, the
chances of a potential oil spike are slightly reduced.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket
fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending
money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its
scientists, the hopes of its children.
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
UK Prime Minister Cameron loses Syria war vote
By RAPHAEL
SATTER and GREGORY KATZ
Associated Press Aug 29, 10:47 PM EDT
Associated Press Aug 29, 10:47 PM EDT
LONDON (AP) -- British Prime Minister David Cameron lost a
vote endorsing military action against Syria by 13 votes Thursday, a stunning
defeat that will almost guarantee that Britain plays no direct role in any U.S.
attack on Bashar Assad's government.
A grim-faced Cameron conceded after the vote that "the
British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want
to see British military action."
The prime minister said that while he still believed in a
"tough response" to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad's
regime, he would respect the will of Parliament.
Responding to the vote, the White House said that a
decision on a possible military strike against Syria will be guided by
America's best interests, suggesting the U.S. may act alone if other nations
won't help.
The defeat was as dramatic as it was unexpected. At the
start of the week, Cameron had seemed poised to join Washington in possible
military action against Assad.
More
U.K. Vote Complicates Obama’s Decision on Syria Action
By Joe Sobczyk, Margaret
Talev & John Walcott - Aug 30, 2013 5:36 AM GMT
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s failure to win parliamentary approval for
military strikes against Syria complicates a decision by U.S. President Barack Obama on
how to hold the Syrian government accountable for an alleged chemical weapons
attack on civilians. With the House of Commons rejection of a plan from Cameron for use of military force, Obama was left recalculating the cost of acting in Syria now that the hands of the main U.S. ally are tied. Even with last night’s vote by U.K. lawmakers, Obama can draw upon some support for the U.S. taking action on its own.
With the U.K. now sidelined, no possibility of a getting a United Nations mandate for military action and inconclusive intelligence on who ordered the Aug. 21 attack, Obama faces a choice between trying to make a convincing case for attacking Syria and finding an alternative means of preventing further use of chemical weapons.
Speaking in the Philippines today, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the U.K. vote doesn’t change that country’s strong condemnation of Syria’s alleged chemical use. He said the U.S. is consulting with its allies on Syria intelligence and will work with Congress.
More
Worldwide loss of oil supply heightens Syria attack risk
Libya's oil output has crashed to a near standstill over the past year as warlords and strikes paralyse the country, tightening the screws on global crude supply as the crisis in Syria comes to a head.
“We are currently witnessing the collapse of state in Libya, and the country is getting closer to local wars for oil revenues,” said the Swiss-based group Petromatrix.The country’s oil ministry said production has slumped to an average of 300,000 barrels per day (b/d) in August, down by more than four-fifths from its peak after the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime two years ago.
“Militia groups are behaving like terrorists, using control over oil as political leverage to extract concessions,” said Dr Elizabeth Stephens, head of political risk at insurers Jardine Lloyd Thompson. Port closures and strikes have compounded the damage but the deeper story is the disintegration of political authority.
Libya is the most extreme example of political mayhem around the world disrupting output and causing a chronic shortfall in oil supply. Production has slumped in Iraq, Nigeria, Iran, Yemen and Syria itself, each for different reasons.
This has cut daily global supply by 1.1m over the past year to 92m, explaining why Brent crude prices have remained stubbornly high despite the slump in Europe and China’s slowdown. To compound the problem, Libya’s oil is some of the highest quality produced in the Middle East and the kind preferred by European refiners. Jitters over Syria have already pushed Brent to $115, near levels that typically erode confidence and inflict serious economic damage.
More
We end for today and the month and the silly
season, with the end of QE forever. While
I doubt that QE forever can ever be ended without a crash, others still think
it will start ending next month. If they’re right a wipe-out of Club Med, India,
Brazil, and many other countries is about to hit in this year’s arriving crash
season. But will an oldie at the Fed really make his last act financial Armageddon?
Will an arriving newbie, really make his or her first act to press the Fed
button marked “Do NOT Touch!” We will very shortly find out in the weeks ahead.
"When paper money systems begin to crack at the seams, the run to gold could be explosive."
Harry Browne
Rise in US growth rate fans expectations of end to QE
The US economy is growing much faster than thought, official figures showed, as the rate was revised up from 1.7pc to 2.5pc for the second quarter of this year.
The
latest figure represented a more than doubling of the 1.1pc rate recorded for
January to March, as surging exports – climbing at their fastest pace in two
years - helped to offset reduced state spending.
The news
will boost confidence that the world’s biggest economy is turning a corner,
with many economists predicting growth will continue to pick up pace in the
second half of the year.
The
strong economic data will also support expectations the Federal Reserve will
next month start to withdraw its economic stimulus by “tapering” off its vast
quantitative easing, or money-printing, effort.
“We will
have to wait for next Friday’s labour market report to be able to say with more
confidence that this is in the bag,” said Rob Carnell, economist at ING Bank.
----The dollar and
yields on US Treasuries rose on expectations of Fed tapering.
More
Emerging market rout is too big for the Fed to ignore
The US Federal Reserve has told Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe to drop dead.
This has the makings of a grave policy error: a repeat of the dramatic events in the autumn of 1998 at best; a full-blown debacle and a slide into a second leg of the Long Slump at worst.Emerging markets are now big enough to drag down the global economy. As Indonesia, India, Ukraine, Brazil, Turkey, Venezuela, South Africa, Russia, Thailand and Kazakhstan try to shore up their currencies, the effect is ricocheting back into the advanced world in higher borrowing costs. Even China felt compelled to sell $20bn of US Treasuries in July.
"They are running down reserves by selling US and European bonds, leading to a self-reinforcing feedback loop," said Simon Derrick from BNY Mellon.
We are told that emerging markets are more resilient than in past crises because they have $9 trillion of reserves. But any use of that treasure to defend the exchange rate entails monetary tightening, and therefore inflicts a contractionary shock on countries already in trouble.
We are also told that they borrow in their own currencies these days, immune to the sort of dollar squeeze that caused such havoc in the early 1980s and the mid-1990s. This is true, but double-edged. India, Brazil and others will surely be tempted to stop fighting markets, let their currencies slide and inflict the pain on foreigners - that is to say, on your pension fund.
Mirza Baig from BNP Paribas advises them to embrace devaluation, calling it futile to defend quasi-pegs.
"The costs of fighting are spiralling out of control," he said.
Mr Baig said foreigners bear 90pc of the currency risk in Malaysia, 81pc in Thailand, 79pc in Korea and 74pc in India. So let them take the haircut. Should these countries take that course, they will inflict a deflationary trade shock on the West. The eurozone is in no fit state to handle that. Nor is Britain.
We are in entirely uncharted waters. Emerging markets were less than 15pc of global GDP in the early 1980s, when tightening by the Volcker Fed brought Latin America crashing down. That was an ugly episode for Western banks, but easily contained.
----If the stakes were high then, they are higher now. Emerging markets are half the world economy, according to IMF data. The "power ratio" is no longer 1:2, it is 1:1. Those who fell in love with the BRICS and mini-BRICS in the boom were entirely right to claim that an economic revolution was taking place.
Yet all we heard from Jackson Hole this time were dismissive comments that the emerging market rout is not the Fed's problem. "Other countries simply have to take that as a reality and adjust to us," said Dennis Lockhart, the Atlanta Fed chief. Terrence Checki from the New York Fed said "there is no master stroke that will insulate countries from financial spillovers”.
The talk for Fed corridors strikes me as dangerously insouciant. The bank has made a series of errors over the past six years, the result of a "closed macro-economy model" that fails to take full account of global interactions. It failed to anticipate how jamming on the brakes before the Lehman crash would trigger a scramble for dollars, igniting a conflagration. The bank played a key role in setting off later spasms of the EMU debt crsis with hawkish talk, each time forced to retreat later.
----One cannot blame the US for the failings of these countries, yet Ben Bernanke and his successor will still have to live with the consequences. Globalisation has entrapped the Fed. Like it or not, the Fed is the world's monetary superpower.
The exodus of money from emerging markets that we have seen so far is nothing compared with what could happen if this episode is mishandled.
More
“What
difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the
mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy
name of liberty or democracy?
Mahatma
Ghandi.
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 39.32
Moz, Eligible 124.81 Moz, Total 164.13 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
No crooks today nor bent politicians and
bureaucrats, I didn’t want to spoil the last holiday weekend of the summer.
Today, it’s those non-stop dancers over at Citi, who in their current technical
update think that raising the US debt ceiling will put gold on a course to
about $3,500 in about 3 years. In the process breaking the cardinal rule of
commodity forecasting, “give them a price or give them a date, never both.”
I think Citi under estimates what will likely
happen this decade. QE forever, is just that, forever. Whatever jobsworth is
given the keys to the Fed, is likely to find that tapering or tampering with “loose
lips Bernanke’s” voodoo QE policy, is likely to bring on the calamity that he implemented
QE to prevent. Every attempt this decade at ending QE will quickly be reversed
as a new crisis develops. But QE forever is bad for the fiat currencies, many
of which have already gone into free-fall at just the prospect of the big bad
Fedsters’ trying to taper QE. On QE forever this decade, I think we will see
the end of the unloved Euro, and the end of the Great Nixonian error of fake
money. I think we will see the re-entry of gold into the international
settlements system. By 2020 I think Citi might be off by an extra zero. Stay
long fully paid up physical precious metals.
Below an excellent article full of interesting
charts.
"For more than two thousand years gold's natural qualities made it man's universal medium of exchange. In contrast to political money, gold is honest money that survived the ages and will live on long after the political fiats of today have gone the way of all paper."
Hans F. Sennholz
Citi Asks "How High Can Gold Ultimately Go?"
Via Citi
FX Technicals,
Gold
looks to have found a base...
Following
the multi-year surge in Gold the recent fall took us 14% below the 55 month
moving average. That is exactly what happened in 1976 during Gold’s correction
after a multi-year move higher.
Once that
moving average was regained on a monthly close basis the uptrend re-established
itself and Gold rallied for the next 3 years. (included in that period was the
“supply shock” driven move higher in crude)
----The rally in the Equity market after the 1973-1974 “crash” peaked 4 weeks after that corrective low was placed in Gold.
SO FAR
the trend peak in the stock market (DJIA and S&P) has taken place 5 weeks
after the corrective low was posted in Gold.
After
that peak in late 1976 the Equity market entered into an 18 month long 27%
correction.
Gold
weekly chart- Prior support now good resistance
----We still retain a view that we can see a “low to high” percentage move in this bull market similar to what we saw in the bull market of 1970-1980.
If we
extract the final leg of that move in December 1979-Jan 1980 which was totally
driven by the USSR invasion of Afghanistan almost doubling the price of Gold
over 5 weeks then we end up with a target of around $3,500 over the next 3
years or so.
The
charts below are compelling in that respect, but before we look at them we will
indulge in some pontification.
----It is no coincidence in our mind that these two have expanded together over the last 10-12 years
As we continue to spend more than we earn and shift that liability to the next generation Gold has shown itself to be a very effective hedge against that policy. The recent “squeeze in Gold” has sent it significant below this “stairway to hell” chart (Debt limit) which has continued higher. As we said earlier, we do not believe that this fall in Gold will be sustainable and expect new highs in the trend eventually.
As we also said above , we have retained a long term target of about $3500 for some time on this Gold price based on a comparison of this period and that seen in the 1970’s
As we headed towards the last Presidential election there was a considered view in the markets that by the end of President Obama’s 2nd term the debt limit could be as high as $22 trillion. Then we got the sequester, a more rosy economic outlook, tapering talk and all this has been forgotten. For how long?
The market dynamics above combined with the change of leadership at the Fed may well be “resurrecting that thought”. If so our 2nd favourite Gold chart comes into play.
Gold and the US debt limit (Again): So what would a debt limit of $22 trillion over the next 2-3 years suggest for the Gold price?
More
"Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium."
Murray N. Rothbard
Have a great weekend everyone.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished July:
DJIA: +164 Up. NASDAQ: +167 Up. SP500: +195 Up. The
Fed’s final bubble still inflates but for how much longer?
