Baltic Dry Index. 562 +02 Brent Crude 54.18
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"My fellow Germans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Greece forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
Herr Schaeuble, with apologies to Ronald Reagan.
In the escalating war of words between the German Finance Minister and the Greek government, Berlin’s Austerity Paymaster General, Herr Schaeuble suggested that Athens was headed for a “Grexident.” “Ve have vays of keeping you in Colditz.” If it wasn’t so serious this would be funny. From faraway London, it appears to me, Berlin needs to pullback from setting up a new EUSSR Stalingrad. A Greek debt partial write-off along with a planned, workable Grexit, seems the best outcome for all. At present, a deliberate German initiated “Grexident” looks far more likely.
Grexit would be 'beginning of the end' for Europe, warns EU chief
Greek prime minister insists on solidarity after Pierre Moscovici says "catastrophe" could emerge from strained debt negotiations
A disorderly Greek exit from the eurozone would mark "beginning of the end" for the currency union and spark a dangerous domino effect of market contagion across the continent, according to the EU's top finance commissioner.Seeking to soothe talk of an "accidental" Grexit, Pierre Moscovici said any move to eject Greece from the bloc "would be a catastrophe - for the Greek economy, but also for the eurozone as a whole."
"If one country leaves this (monetary) union, the markets will immediately ask which country is next, and that could be the beginning of the end," the former French finance minister told Der Spiegel magazine.
Mr Moscovici's comments come after days of fractious exchanges between Greece and its international creditors.
In the latest round of hostile words from Europe's largest debtor country, Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble warned Athens' brinkmanship over implementing economic reforms could result in a "Grexident".
"To the extent that Greece is solely responsible and decides what is to happen, and we don't know exactly what Greek leaders are doing, we can't exclude it," said Mr Schaeuble.
The difference in tone from the European Commission and Berlin reflects a schism between Greece's creditors who have been split over the level of demands they wish to extract from the country.
Responding to the German rhetoric, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras urged Europe to show solidarity with his country as it awaits the approval of a vital bail-out extension.
Striking a more optimistic tone, Mr Tsipras said: "we will find a solution because I strongly believe that this is our common interest.
"I believe that there is no Greek problem, there is a European problem."
Relations between the Leftist country and Germany have deteriorated after Mr Tsipras demanded the repayment of Nazi war reparations earlier this week.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11469742/Athens-bids-to-soothe-fears-of-accidental-Greek-exit-from-the-euro.html
Germans Tired of Greek Demands Want Country to Exit Euro
11:01 PM GMT March 15, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- Berlin cabdriver
Jens Mueller says he’s had it with the Greek government and he doesn’t want
Germany to send any more of his tax money to be squandered in Athens.
“They’ve got a lot of hubris and
arrogance, being in the situation they’re in and making all these demands,”
said Mueller, 49, waiting for fares near the Brandenburg Gate. “Maybe it’s
better for Greece to just leave the euro.”
Mueller’s sentiment is shared by
a majority of Germans. A poll published March 13 by public broadcaster ZDF found
52 percent of his countrymen no longer want Greece to remain in Europe’s common
currency, up from 41 percent last month. The shift is due to a view held by 80
percent of Germans that Greece’s government “isn’t behaving seriously toward
its European partners.”
The hardening of German opinion
is significant because the country is the biggest contributor to Greece’s 240
billion-euro ($252 billion) twin bailouts and the chief proponent of budget
cuts and reforms in return for aid. Tensions have been escalating between the
two governments since Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras took office in January,
promising to end an austerity drive that he blames on Chancellor Angela Merkel.
More
Elsewhere, the big news this week will likely come from America’s Federal Reserve central bank. Will they or won’t they signal a rate hike as early as June? My bet is that they won’t.
Asian Stocks Retreat as Energy Shares Slide, Investors Await Fed
12:08 AM GMT March 16, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks fell
as investors awaited this week’s Federal Reserve meeting for clues on the
timeline for higher U.S. interest rates. Energy companies led losses as oil
resumed last week’s decline.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index
dropped 0.3 percent to 143.50 as of 9:02 a.m. in Tokyo after sliding 1 percent
last week as a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report spurred speculation the
Fed would raise rates sooner than some investors expected. E-mini futures on
the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 0.2 percent after the underlying
equity measure sank 0.9 percent last week for a third weekly drop. The Federal Open
Market Committee meets March 17-18.
Morehttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-16/asian-stocks-retreat-as-energy-shares-slide-investors-await-fed
In currency war news, all fiat currencies stink thinks America’s David Stockman. Uncle Scam’s currency is merely the best apple in a barrel of rotten apples.
Why The Dollar Is Rising As The Global Monetary Bubble Craters
by David Stockman • March 13, 2015
Contra Corner is not about
investment advice, but its unstinting critique of the current malignant
monetary regime does not merely imply that the Wall Street casino is a
dangerous place for your money. No, it screams get out of harms’ way. Now!
Yet I am constantly braced with
questions about the US dollar and its impending demise. The reasoning seems to
be that if America is a debt addicted dystopia—-and it surely is—- won’t
the US dollar sooner or later go down in flames as the day of reckoning
materializes? Won’t you make money shorting the doomed dollar?
Heavens no! At least not
any time soon. The reason is simply that the other three big economies of the
world—Japan, China and Europe—are in even more disastrous condition. Worse
still, their governments and central banks are actually more clueless than
Washington, and are conducting policies that are flat out lunatic—–meaning that
their faltering economies will be facing even more destructive punishment from
policy makers in the days ahead.
Indeed, Draghi, Kuroda and the
commissars of red capitalism in Beijing make Janet Yellen and Stanley Fischer
(Fed Vice-Chairman) appear to be slightly sober. So as trite as it sounds,
the US dollar is the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry. And on a relative
basis, its is going to look even cleaner as two decades of monetary madness
around the world finally hit the shoals.
You have to start with a stark
assessment of the other three major economies.To hear the Wall Street
analysts and economists tell it, Japan, China and Europe are
just variants of the US economy with different mixes of pluses and
minuses, experiencing somewhat different stages of the economic cycle and
obviously shaped by their own diverse brands of domestic politics and
economic governance. Yet despite these surface difference, the non-US big three
economies are held to be just part of a global economic convoy heading for
continued economic growth, rising living standards and higher stock market
prices.
Actually, not so. Japan is a
bankrupt old age colony. China is the most monumental credit and construction
Ponzi in human history. Europe is a terminal victim of socialist welfare and
statist dirigisme. All three are attempting to defer the day of reckoning via
resorting to a final spasm of money printing and central bank manipulation that
is so desperate and crazy that it can only end in disaster.
So there is no
global convoy of inexorable economic growth and progress. Instead, we are
entering a new era of spectacular financial disorder and credit fueled
booms turning into unprecedented deflationary busts. And it is the three big
economies outside the US which will hit the wall first, causing the US
dollar to thrive on a relative basis.
Morehttp://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/why-the-dollar-is-rising-as-the-global-monetary-bubble-craters/?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Mailing+List+Saturday+9+AM
With the crude oil price losing 8.5% to 9.5% last week, we end for today
with oil news. Uncle Scam is using our new lower oil prices to add to his
strategic oil reserve. A “no fracker left behind” oil socialism program, or
prudence reappearing? In the great
scheme of things, 5 million barrels isn’t a lot.
U.S. adding 5 million barrels of oil to its reserves because of cheap prices
Published: Mar 13, 2015 6:38 p.m. ET
----The U.S. is sitting on about 691 million barrels of oil in its Strategic
Petroleum Reserve (SPR), and with oil prices close to a five-year low set in
January, the U.S. is looking to buy even more, soliciting bids for 5
million barrels of oil, worth about $224 million at the closing price on
Friday, March 13, of $44.84 on NYMEX.
The Department of Energy said it plans to buy sweet crude for delivery for its Freeport, Texas, site between June 1 and July 31 and perhaps as early as May, according to a federal website.
The SPR is composed of four giant underground oil fields in Texas and Louisiana, and it sits awaiting a call from the president, in case oil supplies are disrupted.
But if you think when gasoline prices go too high, we’ll tap it, think again.
The first time the U.S. made a 911 call to the SPR was in January 1991 at the start of Operation Desert Storm. The second time came in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina damaged much of the Gulf Coast’s oil refining and production capacity. The most recent event came in 2011 with the U.S.-led attack on Libya. The reserve, which was initiated by President Jimmy Carter in August 1980, is designed to protect the U.S. against a total loss of imported oil, particularly by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC. Two months after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush ordered the Strategic Petroleum Reserve filled to near capacity of 700 million barrels. At the time of the order, the SPR contained about 545 million barrels.
The reserve was filled by August 2005. The reserve as of March 6, 2015, held about 691 million barrels of oil, according to the Department of Energy’s website, which is near its full capacity of 727 million barrels. Of the reserve, 262 million barrels are lower-sulfur “sweet” crude, which is easily refined into gasoline, and 430 million barrels are of higher-sulfur “sour” crude, which is more difficult to refine.
A single 42-gallon barrel of oil is typically refined into about 20 gallons of gasoline, 11 gallons of diesel and 4 gallons of jet fuel along with other refined products.
More
Trader who called oil’s rout sees crude below $40
Published: Mar 13, 2015 4:34 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (MarketWatch)—Investors and traders looking for the oil rout to
give way to a V-shaped recovery are likely to be painfully disappointed, said a
hedge-fund manager who made a killing betting on falling oil prices in 2014.“I still believe we’re going to go below $40 and you’re going to have a look at the lows. I think it’s going to happen faster now than people think,” said Doug King, the London-based chief investment officer of the Merchant Commodity Fund, in a telephone interview on Friday.
The fund saw a 59.3% return in 2014, driven in large part by bets oil prices would fall. Prices for both West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, and Brent, the global benchmark, dropped by more than half from their mid-2014 highs by the end of the year and are down for the year in 2015, as well. King said the fund is up around 8.5% year-to-date.
A February bounce, which saw nearby Brent futures LCOJ5, -4.38% jump more than 19% while lifting Nymex West Texas Intermediate crude CLJ5, -4.36% by 3.2%, was stronger than he had anticipated, King acknowledged..
But that bounce faded fast. Nymex WTI crude ended Friday less than $1 away from a six-year low set earlier this year, extending a sharp weekly decline after the International Energy Agency said signs of price stability were a “facade” in the face of rising production.
More
U.S. weekly rig count down 67: Baker Hughes
Published: Mar 13, 2015 1:19 p.m. ET
SAN FRANCISCO
(MarketWatch) -- Baker Hughes BHI, -1.44% on Friday reported that the number of U.S. rigs actively drilling for
oil and natural gas as of March 13 fell 67 rigs to 1,125. The rig count is down
684 from the same time last year. The number of oil rigs fell 56 to 866.
"When paper money systems begin to crack at the seams, the run to gold could be explosive."
Harry Browne
At the Comex silver
depositories Friday final figures were: Registered 68.86 Moz, Eligible 107.48
Moz, Total 176.34 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
"Anytime
you don't want anything, you get it."
Calvin
Coolidge.
After oil, a glut of natural gas may be next to flood energy markets
Liquefied natural gas is likely to be the next energy source that will see prices fall in the way oil has
Thought you had seen the last of
the huge price movements in the energy markets? Well, think again.
The supply glut which has led to
a 50pc slide in oil prices over the past year will begin to grip the other
major hydrocarbon product vital to global economies, liquefied natural gas
(LNG).
This year will see a “wave” of
new LNG production flooding on to international markets as several major
projects in Australia finally come on stream after years of development and
hundreds of billions of pounds invested.
LNG – natural gas chilled for
transportation by giant tankers – has grown in popularity over the past decade
through a mixture of higher demand from booming Asian economies and the need to
cut carbon emissions.
The US Department of Energy
estimates that natural gas burned in power plants produces about half as much
carbon dioxide as coal and fewer nitrogen oxides, too.
According to BG Group, supply has
remained stalled at levels recorded in 2011. The UK energy company estimates
that last year shipments grew by only 1.5pc to around 243m tonnes. However, by
2025, the company is forecasting that the LNG supply will reach 400m tonnes, requiring
more infrastructure and giant tankers.
This would represent a 5pc annual
increase in demand over the next decade and almost twice the rate of growth
expected to occur in consumption over the same period. Experts are now
concerned that the market will be unable to keep pace with supply, leaving some
LNG projects redundant.
Andrew Walker, BG Group
vice-president of global LNG, said: “After four years of flat supply, we are
entering a period of supply growth. 2014 marked the start of a new wave of supply
from Australia. This will be joined by the first volumes from the US Gulf of
Mexico around the end of 2015.
“This new supply will be absorbed
by continued growth in Asian demand, together with the creation of up to six
new markets in 2015, further diversifying the LNG trade and opening up new
sales opportunities.”
A big issue is the pace of
China’s economic slowdown and the knock-on effect this could have across Asia,
including big LNG-consuming nations such as South Korea and Japan. Asia’s
second-largest economy was forced to shut down 50 nuclear reactors following
the Fukushima disaster and many of these facilities will eventually be
restarted, suppressing demand for LNG.
More
"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
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February
DJIA: +120 Down. NASDAQ: +213 Down. SP500: +169 Down.
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