Baltic Dry Index. 880 -26
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“The world is a place that’s gone from being flat to round to crooked.”
Mad Magazine.
Below, more on our new lawless age. When Barclays
and others rig markets, that’s a crime and very definitely not OK. But when the
central banks print up money to rig stock prices higher for the one percent and
the crony friends of the central banksters, that’s how the system is supposed to
work in the upside down disintegrating world of The Great Nixonian Error of
fiat money. To prop up the now perpetually failing Dollar Reserve Standard,
Satan’s money for never ending discretionary USA war, anything and everything
goes. We are moving on again from Casino capitalism to Mafia capitalism.
Below, central banksters “invest” over 29 trillion
dollars pushing up stocks. Can the Great Reconnect be far away? With the
Fedsters starting a two day meeting later today, buy more, buy more!
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Central Banks Goose Stock Markets
By Chris Becker, a proprietary trader and investing strategist. Originally posted at MacroBusinessYou don’t have to be Einstein or Charlie Munger to work out that since March 2009, central banks have led the recovery (and then some) in global stock market prices (I won’t say value, because they are not the same, just like mistaking volatility for risk).
But it turns out it’s not just money printing and lower (or negative) interest rates that are doing the cooking!
An interesting report to be published this week by the OMFIF claims that because of record low interest rates, central banks have “lost” around $200-250 billion in foregone revenue in interest income on their reserves, with the shortfall being made up by directly investing into the world’s stock markets – from the FT:
The report, seen by the Financial Times, identifies $29.1tn in market investments, including gold, held by 400 public sector institutions in 162 countries.
China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange has become “the world’s largest public sector holder of equities”, according to officials quoted by Omfif. “In a new development, it appears that PBoC itself has been directly buying minority equity stakes in important European companies,” Omfif adds.
In Europe, the Swiss and Danish central banks are among those investing in equities. The Swiss National Bank has an equity quota of about 15 per cent. Omfif quotes Thomas Jordan, SNB’s chairman, as saying: “We are now invested in large, mid- and small-cap stocks in developed markets worldwide.” The Danish central bank’s equity portfolio was worth about $500m at the end of last year.
Overall, the Omfif report says “global public investors” have increased investments in publicly quoted equities “by at least $1tn in recent years” – without saying from what level, or how the figure is split between central banks and other public sector investors such as sovereign wealth funds and pension funds.
More
In China news, what else, yet another red flag.
China Stocks Lead Asia Lower as Foreign Investment Drops
Jun 17, 2014 6:39 AM GMT
Asian stocks fell, led by the biggest drop in a month for Chinese
shares, after foreign direct investment in the world’s second-largest economy
unexpectedly declined. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. retreated 1.9 percent in Shanghai. SoftBank Corp. (9984) fell 2.6 percent in Tokyo, with telecommunications companies among the largest declines of the regional index’s 10 industry groups. New World China Land Ltd. plunged 16 percent in Hong Kong after a $2.4 billion plan by its parent to privatize the China property business collapsed. Konica Minolta Inc. surged 6.5 percent after JPMorgan Chase & Co. advised buying shares in the Japanese office-equipment maker.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) declined 0.2 percent to 143.46 as of 1:36 p.m. in Hong Kong, with about the same number of shares rising and falling. The Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.8 percent, heading for its largest retreat since May 19.
“The slowdown in China is the one thing that could really disrupt these markets,” Leonard Tannenbaum, chief executive officer of Fifth Street Management LLC, said in a Bloomberg TV interview from Tokyo. “Money is very tight, the banks continue to tighten and that’s going to slow the growth rate.”
The Asia-Pacific measure last week touched the highest level since June 2008 amid improving U.S. economic data and indications Chinese growth is stabilizing. Federal Reserve policy makers start a two-day policy meeting today after data yesterday showed American manufacturing is expanding.
More
China Bigger Than U.S. With $14 Trillion in Company Debt
Jun 16,
2014 5:54 PM GMT
Chinese companies borrow more than their American counterparts as the
world’s second-largest economy takes center stage in corporate-debt markets. Borrowers from China had $14.2 trillion in debt at the end of last year, exceeding every other country including the U.S., which had $13.1 trillion in company obligations, according to a report dated June 15 by Standard & Poor’s. Needs of Chinese issuers will increase to $20 trillion through the end of 2018, a third of the $60 trillion in global funding needs
Borrowings in the Asia-Pacific region will overtake both North America and Europe by 2016 as China and neighboring countries widen their lead as the world’s largest group of corporate borrowers, according to S&P. Bonds (BCOR), as opposed to loans, will also become a more important source of financing, increasing 3.5 percent, or almost $3.1 trillion.
“Higher risk for China’s borrowers means higher risk for the world,” Jayan Dhru, S&P’s global head of corporate ratings in New York, wrote in the report. “The U.S. continues on the path to economic recovery while the euro zone struggles with marginal growth, but the bottom line is that this is a China story.”
More
Elsewhere, the news continues to go from bad to
worse, and from worse to worser, but just don’t let on to the Fedsters and
their crony banksters and squids, busy cornering global stocks.
IMF Cuts U.S. Growth Outlook, Sees More Scope for Zero Rates
Jun 16, 2014 5:51 PM GMT
The International Monetary Fund cut its growth forecast for the
U.S. economy this year and said the Federal
Reserve may have scope to keep interest rates at zero for longer than
investors expect. The Washington-based IMF now sees the world’s largest economy growing 2 percent this year, down from an April estimate of 2.8 percent. The IMF left a 2015 prediction unchanged at 3 percent, and said it doesn’t expect the U.S. to see full employment until the end of 2017, amid low inflation.
More
Ukraine Says Russia Has 38,000 Troops on Border Amid ‘Invasion’
Jun 16, 2014 5:19 PM GMT
Russia has amassed as many
as 38,000 soldiers on its borders with Ukraine and continues to supply arms and
personnel to rebel forces in the eastern part of the country, Ukraine’s
National Security Council chief said. Russia has moved about 16,000 troops to Ukraine’s eastern frontier and has another 22,000 in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that President Vladimir Putin annexed in March, Andriy Parubiy told reporters in the capital Kiev today.
“The military invasion is continuing,” Parubiy said. “We are dealing with Russian occupiers and weapons and militants are being brought in.”
----The number of militants in Luhansk and
the neighboring Donetsk region is about 15,000 to 20,000, half of whom are from
Russia, including special forces, Parubiy said today. Igor Konashenkov, a
spokesman for the Defense Ministry in Moscow, declined to comment on Parubiy’s
assertions.
More
Russia Cuts Gas to Ukraine While Maintaining Flow to EU
Jun
16, 2014 4:41 PM GMT
Ukraine said Russia cut natural gas supplies after demanding advance
payments for the fuel, the first time shipments have been affected in this
year’s crisis in relations between the two countries. Russia’s OAO Gazprom (GAZP) is only providing enough gas to Ukraine’s pipeline system to meet demand from European customers and not the country’s needs, Ukraine’s state gas company said. Ukraine must pay its debt and then will only receive gas paid for up front, Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexey Miller said today after a deadline of 10 a.m. in Moscow passed without receiving payment.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-16/ukraine-faces-russian-gas-cutoff-as-payment-talks-fail.html
Ukraine Bonds Sink Most in 2 Months as Gazprom Dispute Escalates
Jun 16, 2014 5:14 PM GMT
Ukraine’s government
bonds slumped the most in two months as OAO Gazprom cut off supplies of gas to
NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy and the two companies filed competing lawsuits, adding to
worsening cross-border tensions. The yield on Ukraine’s dollar-denominated debt due April 2023 climbed 35 basis points to 9.27 percent by the close in Kiev, the biggest jump since April 14. Naftogaz notes due Sept. 30 fell 0.69 cent on the dollar, the most in six weeks, to 97.02 cents, while the yield on Gazprom securities due July 2022 added 18 basis points to 5.29 percent.
Ukraine said today Russia cut natural gas supplies after demanding fuel payments be made in advance. The gas companies filed lawsuits in Stockholm for over $10 billion after failing to agree on energy payments. Gazprom said it is owed $4.5 billion by Naftogaz for gas already supplied, while Naftogaz asserted it wants to establish a fair market price.
“There could be potential for further widening of the spreads if we don’t see a quick resolution,” Tatiana Orlova, senior economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London, said by phone. The bonds are also reacting to “the escalation of fighting in the east of Ukraine,” she said.
More
And in oil news, the Kurds now have all the oil
they need to build a new oil state. But can they cut a deal with ISIL to export
it to Ceyhan Turkey?
Kurds Grab Fourth-Largest Iraq Oilfield Amid ISIL Advance
Jun 16,
2014 10:00 PM GMT
Kurdish troops were defending Iraq’s fourth-biggest oilfield against Islamist militants
after deploying outside their semi-autonomous region in the country’s north to
seize the deposit claimed by the central government. More than 100,000 Kurdish fighters, known as peshmergas, are guarding a “front line” from Iraq’s eastern border with Iran to the northern town of Fishkabur near Turkey, Jabbar Yawar, Peshmerga Ministry secretary-general, said yesterday in an interview in Erbil, the Kurdish region’s capital. They now occupy areas around the contested city of Kirkuk where BP Plc has been in talks with Iraq’s government to help reverse declining output at the oilfield discovered in 1927.
Iraq’s
army abandoned Kirkuk last week amid an offensive by militants from the Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant. Peshmergas now control all energy facilities and
oil deposits in the Kirkuk area other than a refinery in Baiji, 50 miles (80
kilometers) to the southwest, which ISIL forces have surrounded, Yawar said.
ISIL also seized part of a pipeline for oil exports from Kirkuk to Turkey, he said.
Crude flows through the pipeline have been halted for security reasons since
March 2, according to Iraq’s oil ministry.
More
In under reported news, the clock is ticking down
to a new Argentine bond default.
The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
Margaret Thatcher.
Argentina Rejected by U.S. High Court on Defaulted Bonds
Jun 16, 2014 11:05 PM GMT
Argentine Economy Minister Axel Kicillof, who negotiated $15 billion of
payments to resolve debt disputes in the past four months, has two weeks to
pull off his toughest deal yet. The country’s bonds plunged today after the U.S. Supreme Court decided against hearing Argentina’s appeal of an order requiring it to pay holders of defaulted notes from 2001 in full when making payments on its restructured debt. The next payment comes due June 30, giving Kicillof limited time to reach a settlement with holdouts and avoid a new default.
The government says paying back holdout creditors in full would amount to $15 billion, money that would deplete foreign reserves already hovering near an eight-year low. Locked out of international credit markets for more than a decade, Argentina may have few options other than meeting a request for negotiations from Elliott Management Corp., the New York-based hedge fund run by Paul Singer that refused to accept two prior debt restructurings that gave investors about 30 cents on the dollar.
More
We end for the day, with Scotland. We are 90 days
from rUK Freedom From Scotland Day, September 18, 2014. If all goes well,
Greater London taxpayers get free from subsidising Scotland forever! Taxpayers
in rUK get a large reduction in the ridiculous new Labour BBC licence tax, as
BBC Scotland gets turned into SNP Scotland to be paid for by the Scots alone.
rUK taxpayers get free from subsidising Scottish Western and Northern Islands
shipping and airports, Scottish bridges and railways, as the taxpayers of
Greater Glasgow and Edinburgh pick up the cost. With Scotland suddenly outside
of the rUK and rEU, Welsh and Japanese whisky, suddenly become the cheapest in
the land. Mullet haired American Donald Trump, gets to buy the best government
Scotland never had. With London priced out for the Scottish financial industry
rapidly transferring south, the Thames Valley, Cardiff, Birmingham and
Manchester look set for a boom. The list of rUK benefits, just goes on and on.
FFS Day can’t come soon enough. Living in England, I
can only hope my countrymen don’t bottle out, as in go to the pub rather than
voting. Below, Bonnie Scotland, soon to be twined with Iceland, Haiti, Pitcairn
Island and North Korea.
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
Alex Salmond, with apologies to Albert Einstein.
Alex Salmond, with apologies to Albert Einstein.
Europe and Scotland - can't live with them, can't live without them
The decision on Scotland and the EU are, at root, about disillusionment with established political elites and institutions
Most historical developments of
any significance have some underlying economic reason; yet despite these
undercurrents, economics will frequently not be the determining factor.
So it is likely to prove with the
upcoming twin votes on Scottish independence and – assuming a Tory victory at
the next election – Britain’s membership of the European Union.
In both cases, the debate tends
to focus on the economics of separation, yet in neither instance is this really
the main issue. It is not that the economic consequences are irrelevant.
Plainly, they are of some significance; they are also, however, unknowable and
therefore not the most important of the considerations that should instruct
people’s choice.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently
about the parallels between these two votes. Many would argue that there is no
parallel. England and Scotland are bound together by history, language,
culture, geography, institution, Queen and trade in a way that can never be the
case with Europe. For Scotland to leave the UK would therefore be a much bigger
deal than for Britain to leave the EU.
I can’t agree. Both decisions
would be equally disastrous, but not primarily for economic reasons. Now
obviously, Scotland will immediately face some very tough fiscal and monetary
decisions should it vote for independence. Sovereign disengagement is fraught
with economic uncertainties.
Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.
Benito Mussolini.
At the Comex silver depositories Monday final figures were: Registered 57.06 Moz,
Eligible 118.71 Moz, Total 175.77 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Yes we’re back to bent politician’s again. Today,
those Champagne socialist, university politicians, parachuted in by Britain’s
Labour Party, for all the wrong sort of
politically correct reasons. With
a divine right to govern according to their batty preconceived socialist
dogmas, no need to consult the serfs who dutifully would vote for a pig, as
long as it stood under the old Labour socialist banner, one parachutist gets it
all wrong and thinks she sits for a place with the same name but in an entirely
different English County. More fool those who vote for New Labour’s “Parachute
Regiment.” UKIP should put up a local candidate.
"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can
fake that, you've got it made."
Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Labour MP hails beautiful waterfalls of Ingleton - in the wrong village
Helen Goodman praised the people of Ingleton, County Durham, for the geography and history of Ingleton, North Yorkshire
A Labour MP has been accused of a
“disgraceful” lack of knowledge about her own constituency after delivering a
speech to the village of Ingleton that praised a town with the same name 70
miles away.
Helen Goodman is said to have
“babbled on” about the village’s connection to Sherlock Holmes’ author Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle as well as its beautiful limestone caves and waterfalls
while opening a classic car show.
The Oxford-educated MP expounded
the virtues of the village in County Durham for five minutes before stepping
away from the microphone to be informed that she had fawned over the wrong
Ingleton.
In reality, the Ingleton in which
she spoke to 500 baffled constituents is one of a cluster of villages eight
miles west of Darlington, on the edge of Ms Goodman's Bishop Auckland
constituency.
It has no notable limestone caves
or waterfalls, and is not known to have been visited by the creator of Sherlock
Holmes.
The other Ingleton, 70 miles
south in North Yorkshire, boast the White Star Cave, impressive waterfalls and
was a regular haunt of the Sir Arthur, who married locally.
Ms Goodman, who was elected in
2010, was accused of plagiarising the speech from the wrong Wikipedia page
after it emerged that most of her comments reflected the online entry for the
other Ingleton.
Organisers and attendees at the
Village Fair and Classic Vehicle Show compared the blunder to an April Fool’s
Day joke, adding that it was a “disgrace” for an MP to know so little about
their own constituency.
Neil Flowers, 56, who is a member
of the show’s organising committee, said: "It was a little bit
embarrassing if we're being honest.
"It looks as though either
she or a researcher has googled Ingleton and come across the first entry that
comes up, which is for the North Yorkshire village.
"A lot of what she said is
mentioned in the first part of the wikipedia entry for that Ingleton.
"She spoke about our links
with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who was a regular visitor and got married at the
other Ingleton, but doesn't mean much in this one.
"She also talked quite a lot
about the limestone caves. The nearest we have to caves are the old mine
workings nearby.”
Tony Todd, who watched the
ill-fated speech with his family, said: “It would seem that the local MP knows
very little about her area.She seemed quite oblivious to the fact that she was
talking about another Ingleton.
“I looked at my family and I
thought ‘What is she babbling on about?’ She dug a big hole for herself. If it
had been April 1 I would have thought it was a set up.
“I
think she is a disgrace and she has made a lasting impression on me. I would
not vote for her.”
"Too bad ninety percent of the politicians give the other
ten percent a bad reputation."
Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished May
DJIA: +181 Down. NASDAQ: +340 Down. SP500: +246 Down. Crisis? What crisis?
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