Baltic Dry Index. 1424 -04
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“The Germans [your nation here] outside
looked from America to Russia, and from Russia to America, and from America to Russia
again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
With apologies to George Orwell and
Animal Farm.
Drum roll please, and the winner yet again is,
Russia. Russia will now supply natural gas to the Ukraine this winter, to
prevent the Ukraine syphoning off the natural gas being shipped across the
Ukraine to continental Europe, freezing much of eastern continental Europe as a
result. Nice guys in the Ukraine. The cash for the deal, isn’t coming from
bankrupt Ukraine of course, helplessly trapped in the regime of US picked
puppet billionaires, who wisely keep their wealth far away from God forsaken
Ukraine, but instead is to come from the dying EUSSR and the IMF.
Quite why Latin America with its own troubles, and Club
Med with massive youth unemployment and a near depression, should be forced
into paying IMF Russian “Danegeld” for America’s blundering War Party and their
botched coup in Kiev, is anyone’s guess, but this is what’s to happen for
America’s Victoria Nuland getting to pick “Yats” to be Prime Minister of the
Ukraine. As a sweetener, and to grease the political machine in Washington, Vicky
tossed the US Vice President Biden a bone, although whether Hunter Biden is fit
for purpose is an open question. Shame Vicky couldn’t toss a sweetener to Latin
America and the wrecked youth generation in Club Med, but that’s not how the world
works as the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money stumbles towards its end.
Below, welcome to our new lawless age, 21st
century style.
Russia Agrees to Terms With Ukraine Over Gas Supply
Oct 31, 2014 1:32 AM GMT
Russia agreed to terms for
restoring natural-gas exports to Ukraine, laying the groundwork to prevent
residents going without heat as temperatures drop. The gas negotiations, brokered by the European Union, came as pro-Russian rebels stepped up attacks on Kiev government forces. European leaders said they hoped the deal would help improve ties between the two countries.
“This breakthrough will not only make sure that Ukraine will have sufficient heating in the dead of the winter,” European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said at a news conference in Brussels last night. “It is also a contribution to the de-escalation between Russia and Ukraine.”
----The deal came after the EU rebuked Russia for an announcement by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the country would recognize separatist elections planned for Nov. 2 in Ukraine’s rebel-held territories.
Under yesterday’s agreement, Russia said it would resume sending natural-gas to Ukraine -- halted since June -- after receiving the first tranche of debt repayment and upfront payments for future deliveries.
Ukraine agreed to pay $3.1 billion to Russia by the end of this year to partially cover $5.3 billion of NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy’s debt to Russian exporter OAO Gazprom (OGZD), according to Russian estimates. The first tranche, $1.45 billion, will be paid “in the coming days,” Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said.
----Ukraine has
funds to pay for 4 billion cubic meters of gas purchases in November and
December, Ukraine Energy Minister Yuri Prodan said. The EU and the International
Monetary Fund will help Ukraine make payments, Oettinger said. The EU
depends on Russian gas piped across Ukraine to meet about 15 percent of its
demand.
More
Ukrainian energy firm hires Biden’s son as lawyer
- Associated
Press - Saturday, June 7, 2014
WASHINGTON —
Vice President Joe
Biden’s weekend trip to support Ukraine’s fragile
democracy comes soon after his youngest son was hired by a private Ukrainian
company that promotes energy independence from Moscow.The company leases natural gas fields in the breakaway Russian-backed state of Crimea and is owned by a former government minister with ties to Ukraine’s ousted pro-Russian president.
The hiring of Hunter Biden, 44, by Burisma Holdings Limited in April was approved by the company’s owner, a former senior minister and political ally of Viktor Yanukovych, the exiled Ukrainian president. Yanukovych fled to Russia in February after protests erupted over his efforts to establish closer economic ties with Moscow.
Hunter Biden’s employment means he will be working as a director and top lawyer for a Ukrainian energy company during the period when his father and others in the Obama administration attempt to influence the policies of Ukraine’s new government, especially on energy issues.
More
Biden’s Son Hunter Discharged From Navy Reserve After Failing Cocaine Test
Lawyer Pursued Military Service as a Public-Affairs Officer
By Colleen McCain Nelson and Julian E. Barnes Updated Oct. 16, 2014 7:35 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON—Vice President Joe Biden ’s son
Hunter was discharged from the Navy Reserve this year after testing positive
for cocaine, according to people familiar with the matter.Hunter Biden, a lawyer by training who is now a managing partner at an investment company, had been commissioned as an ensign in the Navy Reserve, a part-time position. But after failing a drug test last year, his brief military career ended.
Mr. Biden, 44 years old, decided to pursue military service relatively late, beginning the direct-commission process to become a public-affairs officer in the Navy Reserve in 2012. Because of his age—43 when he was to be commissioned—he needed a waiver to join the Navy. He received a second Navy waiver because of a drug-related incident when he was a young man, according to people familiar with the matter.
More
In the currency wars, it was Japan’s turn to beggar their
neighbours again.
Why did I take up stealing? To live better, to own things I couldn't afford, to acquire this good taste that you now enjoy and which I should be very reluctant to give up.
Japan, with apologies to Cary Grant. To Catch A Thief.
Japan central bank shocks market with fresh easing
Published: Oct 31, 2014 1:21 a.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — In an
unexpected move, the Bank of Japan’s policy board voted by a 5-to-4 margin to
expand the pace of its quantitative easing, sending Tokyo stocks soaring and
the Japanese yen falling sharply.
The central bank expanded the
size of its Japanese Government Bond purchases to the equivalent of “about 80
trillion yen” ($727 billion) a year, an increase of ¥30 trillion from the
previous pace. It said it would also buy longer-dated JGBs, seeking an average
remaining maturity of 7-10 years.
The central bank also said it
would triple its purchases of exchange-traded funds and real-estate investment
trusts.
Concerns about dwindling
inflation appeared to drive the move, with the Bank of Japan saying that “on
the price front, somewhat weak developments in demand following the [April 1]
consumption-tax hike and a substantial decline in crude-oil prices have been
exerting downward pressure recently.”
More
With the Fedsters busy dressing up stock markets for
today’s end of the month and crash season, what could possibly go wrong after
next month’s happy US voters vote? Mr and Mrs Squid have never been richer, no
word about happiness.
US and China tighten in unison, and damn the torpedoes
The world has changed abruptly for investors as the US Federal Reserve and the People's Bank of China both brush aside deflation warnings and press ahead with monetary tightening
Mind the monetary gap as the
world's two superpowers turn off the liquidity spigot at the same time.
The US Federal Reserve and the
People’s Bank of China have both withdrawn from the global bond markets, each
for their own entirely different reasons. The combined effect is a shock of
sorts for the international financial system.
The Fed’s message on Wednesday
night was hawkish. It did not invoke the excuse of a stronger dollar or global
market jitters to extened bond purchases. It no longer sees “significant”
constraints to the labour market. Instead it spoke of “solid job gains” and a
“gradual diminishing” of under-employment.
This a tightening shift, and seen
as such by the markets. The euro dropped 1.5 cents against a resurgent dollar
within minutes of the release, falling back below $1.26. Rate rises are on
track for mid-2015 after all.
The Fed is no longer printing any
more money to buy Treasuries, and therefore is not injecting further dollars
into an interlinked global system that has racked up $7 trillion of
cross-border bank debt in dollars and a further $2 trillion in emerging market
bonds. The stock of QE remains the same. The flow has changed. Flow matters.
The Fed has ended QE3 more gently
than QE1 or QE2. This helps but it may also have given people a false sense of
security. The hard fact is that the Fed has tapered net stimulus from $85bn a
month to zero since the start of the year.
The FOMC tried to soften the blow
in its statement with pledges to keep interest rates low for a very long time.
This assurance has value only if you think QE works by holding down interest
rates, as the Yellen Fed professes to believe.
It cuts no ice if you are a
classical monetarist and think that QE works its magic through the quantity of
money effect, most potently by boosting broad M3/M4 money through purchases of
assets outside the banking system.
More
"The great merit of gold is precisely that it is scarce; that its quantity is limited by nature; that it is costly to discover, to mine, and to process; and that it cannot be created by political fiat or caprice."
Henry Hazlitt
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 66.18
Moz, Eligible 114.74 Moz, Total 180.92 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
No regular crooks today, just increasing turmoil in
the oil and gas patch. The price slump intended to undo Russia by the American
War Party, is increasingly undoing the long range plans of western energy
companies. But don’t let on to the Fed’s Plunge Protection Team busy goosing US
stock markets ahead of next week’s US elections. Long before President Putin
waves a white flag over Moscow to the American War Party, Venezuela, Brazil and
Mexico will have collapsed under the regime of cheap oil, along with almost all
of the USA’s heavily indebted oil and gas frackers. It’s a funny old world on
central planning by unelected, central banksters untroubled by the workings of
the real economy. With any luck, 1998 here we come. In 1998 crude oil sold for
11.91 a barrel, US inflation adjusted 17.10, compared to 1946 1.63 inflation
adjusted 19.23, and WTI of 81.17 today, Brent Crude 86.13.
"If the financial system goes down, our business is going down and, trust me, yours and everyone else's is going down, too."
Lloyd Blankfein. CEO Goldman Sachs. November 8, 2009
Oil Rout Seen Diluting Price Appeal of U.S. LNG Exports
Oct 31,
2014 6:01 AM GMT
Oil’s collapse is eroding the appeal of potential U.S. LNG exports to Asia as it cuts the
cost of competing supplies linked to the price of crude. Brent’s 22 percent drop this year outpaced the 8.9 percent decline in natural gas at Henry Hub, the benchmark for U.S. liquefied natural gas shipments that are scheduled to begin in 2015. When the cost of processing and shipping American supplies to Asia is taken into account, the price advantage over oil-linked cargoes from producers such as Qatar has more than halved, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
While the U.S. shale boom prompts the world’s biggest natural gas producer to plan exports of the fuel, it’s also boosting the country’s crude output to the most in 30 years, helping drive down global oil prices.
“The U.S. will not sell cheap gas,” Umar Jehangir, the deputy secretary of development and joint ventures at Pakistan’s Petroleum and Natural Resources Ministry, said in Singapore on Oct. 29, adding that the opinion was his own. “U.S. LNG will be exactly the same price as gas coming out of Qatar to Asia.”
-----With Brent at $87.12 a barrel as of Oct.
29 and U.S. natural gas at $3.728 per million Btu, the gap shrinks to $2.28,
all else being equal. If Commerzbank AG’s forecast for $85 Brent and $5 per
million Btu natural gas next year are accurate, the difference will be about 50
cents. It was $5.26 at the end of last year.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-30/oil-rout-seen-diluting-price-appeal-of-u-s-lng-exports.html
Oil Set for Biggest Monthly Drop Since 2012 on Global Oversupply
Oct 31, 2014 6:29 AM GMT
West Texas Intermediate headed for the biggest monthly decline in more than
two years amid signs that OPEC boosted output to a 14-month high even as crude
slumped into a bear market. Brent was steady in London. Futures were little changed in New York, bringing October’s drop to about 11 percent. Production from the 12-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries increased by 53,000 barrels a day to 30.974 million, a third monthly gain, a Bloomberg survey shows. Traders are split on whether Saudi Arabia will deepen the crude price cuts that propelled oil into a bear market this month.
WTI and Brent have fallen more than 20 percent from their June peaks, meeting a common definition of a bear market, as leading OPEC members resisted calls to cut output. Global supplies are rising, with the U.S. pumping at the fastest pace in more than three decades while Russia’s production climbed to near a post-Soviet record.
“OPEC members are keeping prices low by raising their production as a way to remain competitive against the expanding output in the U.S.,” Will Yun, a commodities analyst at Hyundai Futures Inc. in Seoul, said by phone today. “Positive economic data we saw from the U.S. failed to provide an upward push to oil as supply concerns are too deeply rooted.”
More
OPEC Boosts Oil Output as Prices Slide to Four-Year Low
Oct 30, 2014 11:00 PM GMT
OPEC countries boosted oil output to a 14-month high
in October as crude futures sank into a bear market, a Bloomberg survey showed
yesterday. Production by the 12-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries climbed by 53,000 barrels a day to 30.974 million, led by gains in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Libya, according to the survey of oil companies, producers and analysts. Last month’s total was revised 14,000 barrels a day lower to 30.921 million because of changes to the Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Nigerian and Qatari estimates
OPEC nations lifted output as Brent crude dropped to a four-year low amid ample global supplies and sluggish demand. The group’s biggest producers, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Kuwait, have cut their official selling prices, sparking speculation they will compete for market share rather than trim output. Ministers will gather next month to discuss the group’s production target.
“The data confirms that there’s a battle over market share,” John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, a New York-based hedge fund that focuses on energy, said by phone yesterday. “The members are playing chicken with the market.”
More
Oil Prices 1946-Present
The first table shows the Annual Average Crude Oil Price from 1946 to the present. Prices are adjusted for Inflation to January 2014 prices using the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) as presented by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
More
"Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money."
Daniel Webster
Have a great weekend everyone.
More rape and pillage by unaccountable central banksters, thieving Great
Vampire Squids, and bent politicians next week. November, the start of the
Santa Claws rally.
Richard Wittington, an honest dreamer, travels to London “where the streets are paved with gold”. Fairy Bow Bells realises his destiny, and supplies him with an introduction to leading derivatives gambler, Lloyd Blankfein ….
With apologies to Richard Gauntlett.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished September.
DJIA: +141 Down. NASDAQ: +289 Down. SP500: +216 Down.
