Baltic Dry Index. 533 +09 Brent Crude 60.82
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
Again,
it may be said that we need not be alarmed at the magnitude of our credit
system or at its refinement, for that we have learned by experience the way of
controlling it, and always manage it with discretion. But we do not
always manage it with discretion. There is the astounding instance of Overend,
Gurney, and Co. to the contrary. Ten years ago that house stood next to the Bank
of England in the City of London; it was better known abroad than any similar
firm—known, perhaps, better than any purely English firm. The partners had
great estates, which had mostly been made in the business. They still derived
an immense income from it. Yet in six years they lost all their own wealth,
sold the business to the company, and then lost a large part of the company's
capital. And these losses were made in a manner so reckless and so foolish,
that one would think a child who had lent money in the City of London would
have lent it better. After this example,
we must not confide too surely in long-established credit, or in firmly-rooted
traditions of business. We must examine the system on which these great masses
of money are manipulated, and assure ourselves that it is safe and right.
Walter Bagehot. Lombard Street. 1873
The global wobble intensifies, from Australia, to
Brazil, to China, to Europe, to Japan, to anywhere outside of the central
bankster’s QE and ZIRP fuelled asset bubble. In my humble unimportant opinion,
about the only thing left holding up the central banksters bubble, is the
prospect that from next week the ECB is about to unleash QE Constrained, and
join in the global currency wars to the bottom. 2015 is turning into a year
without precedent. The chances of it all turning out well are close to nil. In
the real world, we seem to be heading back into recession.
China's yuan slumps on growth worries
Published: Feb 26, 2015 11:40 p.m. ET By AnjaniTrivedi
China's yuan fell to its weakest level against the dollar in more than two
years on Friday, extending a decline driven by the prospect of a slowdown in
the world's second-largest economy.Investors have been selling the yuan in recent months amid a flurry of disappointing economic indicators out of China, which have raised expectations that Beijing could devalue the tightly controlled currency to stoke growth. Meanwhile, money managers see a steady recovery and higher short-term interest rates in the U.S., bolstering the allure of the dollar.
Recently, the yuan traded as weak as 6.2699 against the dollar, the weakest level since October 2012, compared with 6.2589 on Thursday. A higher number against the dollar means a weaker yuan.
China's central bank helped guide the yuan lower on Friday. The People's Bank of China set the daily reference rate at 6.1475 to the dollar, the lowest fix since November 2014. The PBOC allows the yuan to trade 2% above or below the daily reference rate. In recent days, the yuan has flirted with the lower limit as pressure mounts.
On Thursday, the yuan came within the closest point of the lower edge of the trading band since March 2014, even as the PBOC has kept the official rate relatively steady before Friday.
More
China's Real Property Problem
As China slows down, leaders in Beijing are understandably turning to one of their favored growth stabilizers: housing. A record decline in new-home prices in January has, as my Bloomberg News colleagues reported this week, prompted Chinese officials to contemplate additional stimulus measures, including reducing the required down payments on second homes and eliminating sales tax after only two years of ownership instead of five.And why not? To this point, various price-boosting schemes have helped China ward off the kind of downturn that befell America in the late 2000s and Japan two decades earlier. Unfortunately, though, they’re no longer likely to have the same impact today.
That’s because of a little-recognized shift in the nature of China’s property bust -- from the demand side to the supply side. As research done by Rosealea Yao of Gavekal Dragonomics shows, China’s real problem is that new construction is evaporating no matter what sales and prices do. That means the knock-on effects of additional stimulus -- on cement, steel and so on -- will necessarily be limited.
"This is a supply-side correction in property," Yao writes in a new report. "While housing sales will likely improve this year, construction and all the industrial activity that depends on it will not. Therefore an upturn in housing sales will not deliver as much of a boost to growth."
More
Oil's drop chills Asian stocks, inflation data boosts dollar
By Shinichi Saoshiro TOKYO
(Reuters) - Asian shares were mostly lower on Friday as a sharp overnight
pullback in crude oil prices dampened risk
appetite, while the dollar was firm after upbeat U.S. data tilted expectations
back toward an early interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve.Strong factory output data and a weaker yen pushed Tokyo's Nikkei .N225 to a fresh 15-year high but the market was last flat as profit taking kicked in.
Elsewhere, South Korean shares fell after a seven-day rally and Malaysian and Thai stocks declined modestly, though markets in China and Australia gained.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was down 0.1 percent after advancing to a five-month high on Wednesday.
Spreadbetters forecast Britain's FTSE .FTSE, France's CAC .FCHI and Germany's DAX .GDAXI, which hit a new record high overnight, to open slightly lower after recent rallies.
----Dollar bulls, disappointed earlier this week by perceived dovish signals from Fed Chair Janet Yellen, took heart again after data released on Thursday showed U.S. core inflation rose more than expected.
Robust U.S. durable goods orders also helped, with both sets of data driving Treasury yields higher and supporting the dollar.
Investors are now waiting on revised fourth quarter U.S. gross domestic product data due later on Friday for another health check of the world's largest economy.
Economists polled by Reuters expected U.S. growth in the fourth quarter to be revised down to 2.1 percent from a preliminary 2.6 percent. ECONUS
More
In continental European news, Germany continues
spewing hate towards the hapless Greek serfs. The EUSSR is about anything but
brotherly love. Will the Greeks breakout of Colditz this weekend? Below,
Germany shows continental Europe who’s boss.
You will get nothing unless you honour our deal, Germany warns Greece
Germany expected to approve new eurozone bail-out deal for Greece on Friday
By Justin Huggler, in Berlin 9:29PM
GMT 26 Feb 2015
Germany is expected to approve
the new eurozone bail-out deal for Greece in a parliamentary vote on Friday but
has warned that Athens will receive nothing unless it honours its commitments
under the deal.
Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German
finance minister, said he was “stunned” after his Greek counterpart, Yanis
Varoufakis, spoke again of a debt restructuring on Greek radio, and the Athens
government indicated it would block plans to privatise strategic assets.
“If the Greeks violate the
agreements, then they have become obsolete," a visibly angry Mr Schaeuble
said at a meeting to persuade German MPs to support the deal in today’s vote.
The meeting in Berlin came after Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper launched a
campaign against the Greece deal, printing “NEIN!” across an entire inside
page, and encouraging readers to take selfies holding the page up and send them
in for publication.
“No more billions for greedy
Greeks,” the newspaper added, in only slightly smaller print. The page was
printed in the blue and white of the Greek flag, instead of Bild’s more usual
red and white.
Earlier, Mr Varoufakis said in an
interview with Charlie Hebdo: “If you think you would do well to bring down
progressive governments like our then prepare for the worst."
More
We close with David Stockman on the farce of “Fed
Week” just past. Our central banksters are out of ammo, out of ideas and out of
luck.
The Pathetic ‘Talk Therapy’ Of Janet Yellen
by David Stockman •
What in god’s name does Janet
Yellen think she is doing? Just a few weeks ago she
established the ridiculous Fedspeak convention that “patient”
means money market rates will not rise from the zero bound for at least
two meetings. Now she has modified that message into “not exactly”.
As her Wall Street Journal
megaphone, Jon Hilsenrath, was quick to amplify:
Ms.. Yellen signaled the Fed is
moving toward dropping the reference to being patient from its statement, but
sought to dispel the notion it would mean rate increases were certain or
imminent.
“It is important to emphasize
that a modification of the [interest-rate] guidance should not be read as
indicating that the [Fed] will necessarily increase the target rate in a couple
of meetings,” Ms.. Yellen told the Senate panel.
So two meetings is no longer two
meetings. That’s worse than Greenspan’s double talk at his worst, and
here’s why. It’s all make believe!
After 74 months of ZIRP, a
hairline increase in the money market rate to 25 bps or even 100 bps will have
absolutely no impact on the main street economy—–nor on whether the “in-coming”
data deviates up or down by a few decimal points from 5.7% on
the U-3 unemployment rate or 1.7% on the CPI.
The Fed is absolutely
incapable of impacting the short-run ticks on its so-called inflation
and unemployment “mandates” because its “credit channel” of monetary
transmission is broken and done. The household sector is still saturated
by peak debt and the ZIRP fueled runaway stock market rewards corporate
executives for share buybacks and M&A deals, not investment in productive
assets—even with borrowed money.
So there is absolutely no reason
to peg interest rates at freakishly low levels. It has manifestly not
enabled household to supplement spending from their tepidly growing
incomes by means of ratcheting up their leverage ratios. That Fed trick
worked for about 45 years until households used up their balance sheet
runway in 2007 and thereupon smacked straight into “peak debt”.
More
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 67.51
Moz, Eligible 109.38 Moz, Total 176.89 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, more on the American War Party’s botched
coup in Kiev. By now, Putin was to be history, Russia in chaos, being sliced
and diced for western companies seeking to exploit EurAsia’s resources. China
was to be isolated. Belarus seeking to join the Ukraine in the EU and NATO.
Instead what we have is a Ukrainian Quisling
President making war on his own people for the benefit of a foreign power.
Ukraine’s economy and currency in collapse. It’s army and neo-fascist
irregulars routed. Free speech suppressed, journalists imprisoned, hundreds of
thousands fleeing Kiev imposed conscription. Ukraine’s gold reserves “disappeared”
into America, possibly part delivered to Holland and Germany. Inflation
bordering on hyperinflation. Western Ukraine all but a failed state.
Below, for once mainstream media drops most of the
War Party’s propaganda.
Hybrid war: The real reason fighting stopped in Ukraine – for now
By Fiona Hill February 26, 2015
President Vladimir Putin
understands how insurgencies work better than any other Russian leader. We are
watching this play out right now in Ukraine.
Before Putin took power, Moscow
had long struggled to suppress rebel movements. In the 1980s, for example, the
Soviet Union grappled with the Muslim mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Moscow propped
up the beleaguered Kabul government with an invasion and occupation — to little
avail. After 10 years of grueling conflict, Moscow withdrew, just as the Soviet
Union fell apart. A few years later, rebels inflicted another serious blow
against the Russian military, in the Russian province of Chechnya. Chechen
militants launched attacks deep into Russia. The Kremlin again withdrew its
forces and essentially sued for peace.
Until Putin took the helm.
Putin succeeded where others had
failed because he was skilled at fighting dirty. As a former KGB operative, he
fused together intelligence and military measures. In Chechnya he relentlessly
pursued the rebels, often using undercover operations that adopted terrorist
tactics, until one Chechen leader switched sides and helped him defeat the
rebels.
Now in Ukraine, Putin has turned the tables. He is with the insurgents, not the government. Putin is to Kiev what the mujahedeen and the Chechens were to Kabul and Moscow, respectively. Given Russia’s own simmering national minority troubles and territorial disputes, the Russian president is taking a huge risk in backing an armed rebellion in a neighboring country.
But the risk is well calculated because the stakes are high. Putin has a great deal riding on this.
He firmly believes, as he has laid out in many statements, that the battle for the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine is a proxy war with the West. The United States and Europe seek to weaken Russia, Putin’s argument goes, by pulling a key Russian ally, Ukraine, into their sphere of influence. Putin’s goal is to deny Kiev the chance of associating with the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In Putin’s view, the West stoked regime change in Kiev in February 2014 for the same reasons that the United States supported the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s — to undermine Moscow’s authority throughout the region. Putin also asserts that the West aided and abetted the Chechens throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s to destabilize the Russian Federation. So according to Putin’s logic, Afghanistan was the West’s proxy war with the Soviet Union. Ukraine is the West’s proxy war with Russia.
This being a proxy war, Putin is intent on helping the side that best serves Russia’s interests. In this case, that side is the “armed formations,” as the February Minsk agreement describes them, of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
----Having fought off an insurgency himself, Putin knows a thing or two about insurgents’ methods. Putin and the Russian military have incorporated these tactics into a larger strategy of 21st-century hybrid war. Valery Gerasimov, chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, rolled this out in a January 2013 speech. He announced the Russian military would engage in a “new kind of war” fought with “nonmilitary methods to achieve political and strategic goals.”
These methods, Gerasimov explained, would involve fomenting popular protests, using covert military measures and deploying special operations forces, often under the guise of peacekeeping or crisis management. Such tactics, Gerasimov insisted, had been used by the United States for decades. Now Russia would fight back in the same way.
----So where are we now in this giant war game? On Feb. 24, we appeared to enter what Moscow might term a “political-diplomatic phase.” This was the first full day without casualties since the Feb. 12 Minsk agreement. As Gerasimov asserted in his speeches, the goal of an asymmetric hybrid war is to achieve objectives without launching a full-blown conventional military war. Hybrid war has many weapons and many ways of fighting.
more
Deep mistrust threatens Ukraine's shaky ceasefire
Rebel soldiers have one thing in common with rank-and-file Ukrainians: an almost complete lack of faith in their enemy’s willingness to fulfil the Minsk peace agreement
From the narrow loop hole of a machine gun nest, a rebel fighter squinted towards no-man’s land and listened for the whump of artillery and the intermittent crackle of automatic weapon fire.
From these trenches, the war in eastern Ukraine is seen in almost exact mirror image to that in the west: it is the Ukrainians on the other side who started the war; it is they who are still violating the ceasefire; and it is the Americans, not the Russians, who are stoking the conflict by arming proxies.
But rebel soldiers here do have one thing in common with rank-and-file Ukrainians a few hundred meters away: an almost complete lack of faith in their enemy’s willingness to fulfil the Minsk peace agreement.
“The Ukrainians will not keep to the Minsk agreement, we are certain of it - Poroshenko does not want peace,” said the separatist commander in charge of this stretch of the front line.
It is that deep mistrust that threatens the success of what Angela Merekl called the “last chance” to end the war.
----But as far as the men of the ninth company are concerned, it is the Ukrainians getting foreign help, and it is America, not Russia, that is arming proxies.
“Look at that,” said Zhora,
presenting the nose cone of some spent ordnance that he said had hit a nearby
house. “It bears latin lettering. There is no way that is from Ukrainian or
Russian stocks. So they are definitely getting arms from abroad,” he said.
“We’ve seen them with American weapons - M-16 rifles. Where do you think they
got that?”
More
Another weekend, and nothing’s really changed from last weekend. The
never ending Greek crisis is never ending. The never ending moslem war of atrocity
in Africa and the middle east just grows. Outside of the central bankster fiat
fulled bubble the real world seems headed back towards recession. Politics in
Britain and Europe is headed for a great storm. In Britain’s case now just over
two months away from the general election. Time to enjoy the early approach of
spring here in southern England. Have a great weekend everyone.
A large Bank is exactly the place where a vain and shallow person in authority, if he be a man of gravity and method, as such men often are, may do infinite evil in no long time, and before he is detected. If he is lucky enough to begin at a time of expansion in trade, he is nearly sure not to be found out till the time of contraction has arrived, and then very large figures will be required to reckon the evil he has done.
Walter Bagehot. Lombard Street. 1873
The monthly Coppock Indicators
finished January
DJIA: +124 Down. NASDAQ: +220 Down. SP500: +178 Down.
