Baltic Dry Index. 584 +13 Brent Crude 54.31
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"On the day of the new moon, in the
month of Hiyar, the Sun was put to shame, and went down in the daytime, with
Mars in attendance."
One of the earliest
written records of an eclipse of the Sun, on 3 May 1375 BC, found in the city
of Ugarit in Mesopotamia.
The big day is finally here.
Two thirds of the UK is preparing to skive off work to watch at least some part
of this morning’s partial solar eclipse. For much of the UK at its peak, the
eclipse will be in the 85 to 95 percent range. Lucky Shetlanders get a 98
percent view, if clouds permit. This being the UK in mid March, cloudy
conditions are expected over much of the British Isles, still it forces our
media to have to break from non-stop coverage of the May general election, the
downside of having fixed term Parliaments. Time to abandon an unneeded failed foreign
experiment. Twilight this morning for Great Britain. For Europe, all eyes are
on how well Germany’s power grid handles the sudden drop off of solar power.
Germany leads Europe in solar power.
In other dismal science news,
the Great Vampire Squids don’t expect a US rate hike before October at the
earliest. December or next year being more likely. Wall Streeter’s have the Fed
exactly where they want them and don’t they know it. The Fed and its talking
chair are well and truly in Ebenezer Squid’s pocket. So much for independent
central banks. For Greece it may not matter, the end looks near.
Here’s when the market is pricing in the first rate hike
Published: Mar 19, 2015 9:51 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Economists at major Wall Street houses are
debating whether the Federal Reserve will make its first rate hike since the
financial crisis in June or September.But the market is pricing in another month for the first rate rise — October.
According to the CME Group’s FedWatch calculator, which is derived from federal-fund futures, October is the first month in which the probability of a rate hike is over 50%.
The current probability for a June hike is 11%, and there is a 44% likelihood of a September increase, the data show. But there is a 65% likelihood of a rate hike in October, the data show.
Few would expect an October move. The Fed holds its news conference and gives out economic projections and the infamous “dot plot” on a quarterly basis. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said on Wednesday that every meeting is a “live meeting” and that they could hold a conference call at any time.
Nonetheless, it is hard to imagine a scenario where the Fed would be uncomfortable with increasing interest rates in September but ready to move shortly before Halloween.
Yellen said Wednesday that a rate rise in April is “unlikely” but that it could be appropriate at later meetings.
There are Federal Open Market Committee meetings in June, July, September, October and December.
But all is not right in the
global economy. While China is officially growing at 6.8 percent, there’s a
rising consensus that the real rate of growth is half that. A minority of China
watchers fear that China’s economy is not growing at all. Below, Singapore
joins in the rising wall of worry. The Great Disconnect between central bankster
stock bubbles and economic reality is about to get severely tested.
Singapore Dollar Prospects Worst Since ’98 as Asia Losses Spread
1:08 AM GMT March 20,
2015
(Bloomberg) -- The currency of Asia’s highest-rated nation reflects a level
of economic anxiety not seen since the region’s financial crisis almost two
decades ago. Singapore’s dollar is headed for a third straight quarterly loss versus its U.S. counterpart, and surging forward rates imply that the currency will depreciate at the fastest clip since 1998.
That signals pessimism about growth and deflation across the region because the Singapore dollar is often traded in place of currencies that aren’t as liquid. The island state is one of Asia’s main financial centers and its currency tends to be more resilient than peers from Thailand’s baht to Indonesia’s rupiah, making the bearishness even more significant.
“It’s used as an Asian proxy,” Rajeev De Mello, who oversees about $10 billion as head of Asian fixed-income at Schroder Investment Management Ltd., said by phone from Singapore. “When the market was bullish on Asia and bearish the U.S. dollar, the Singapore dollar did exceptionally well.” Now comes “a reversal of that trade,” he said.
Singapore’s currency tumbled to a 4 1/2-year low of S$1.3941 to the U.S. dollar on March 13, two days after a surprise interest-rate cut in Thailand and as data showed China’s slowdown is continuing into 2015. It was at S$1.3861 at 11:53 a.m. Friday in Singapore.
Traders are betting further losses are in store. The gap between the Singapore dollar’s spot rate and contracts betting on its value in six months increased to 0.0077 on March 10, the widest since 1998. The difference was 0.0069 on Friday.
The forward points rallying to levels not recorded since the Asian financial crisis means the market expects the Singapore dollar to depreciate further, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts including Fiona Lake in Hong Kong and Reza Siregar in Singapore wrote in a March 10 report.
Because Singapore is the only Asian nation with triple-A ratings from all three major credit-grading companies, traders often use its currency to take a view on the region as a whole.
More
We end for the day and week
with Greece. With Greece now scraping the bottom of the barrel to pay its
bills, is this Grexit weekend or at the least time for capital controls?
Greek PM assures EU creditors reforms coming to unlock cash
By Renee Maltezou and Alastair
Macdonald BRUSSELS
(Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras assured European Union
creditors at late-night crisis talks in Brussels that his leftist-led coalition
would present soon a full set of economic reforms in order to unlock cash to
stave off bankruptcy.After two months of mounting frustration on both sides since Tsipras was elected with a mandate to end years of austerity imposed by creditors' conditions, the three-hour meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit was requested by Tsipras to break an impasse that risks seeing Athens stumble out of the euro zone.
But while a joint statement by the EU institutions spoke of a "spirit of mutual trust" and Tsipras said he left feeling more optimistic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed no money would be released before Athens implements budget measures and other reforms that it has so far been reluctant to consent to.
The risk of a continued standoff, exactly a month after Greece secured a last-gasp four-month extension of an EU bailout loan, was underlined in different descriptions by Tsipras and Merkel about what reforms Athens would need to launch.
"It is clear that Greece is not obliged to implement recessionary measures," the 40-year-old Greek premier told reporters, referring to previously agreed reforms. "Greece will submit its own structural reforms, which it will implement."
But Merkel, who faces mounting resistance in Europe's richest state to go on lending to keep an erratic partner in the common currency area, insisted that only the full completion of already approved measures would be acceptable to the creditors.
"The reference point is the agreement of Feb. 20," she said. "We have not changed one iota. You may have heard some of this before. But then not much has happened in the last few weeks."
Tsipras will make a much anticipated visit to Merkel in Berlin on Monday. EU officials said that if Greece did come up with a convincing plan to get its debts under control then euro zone finance ministers could meet soon to release at least some funds to help it meet pressing commitments in the coming weeks.
----Athens has been kept from bankruptcy by two bailouts since the global financial crisis, but now risks running out of money within weeks. On Thursday, Greek banks reported the largest deposit withdrawals in a month, a sign savers are worried about the outlook for the country's finances and institutions.
A person familiar with ECB
thinking said Draghi would make clear the bank would not lift its limit on
Greek short-term debt issuance, which Greece's Marxist finance minister has
said is "asphyxiating" his country. "It's up to Greece to meet
its commitments in order to get money from its creditors," said the
person. "The ECB doesn’t do bridge finance."
----A Greek official said Athens had enough cash to pay a final350 million euro installment of a loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday.
"There remains a very tough
way ahead," Merkel told the German parliament on Thursday. Greece must
understand that international aid brought with it an obligation "to reform
its budget and work towards one day no longer needing help".
More
"On that day, says the Lord God,
I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight."
I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight."
Said to refer to
the solar eclipse of 15 June 763 BC. Amos, Chapter 8, verse 9
At the Comex silver
depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 70.02 Moz, Eligible 106.39
Moz, Total 176.41 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
“The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.”
“Adam Smith” aka George Goodman.
China's Place in the New World Economic Order
By The
Editors
Competition between the world's two
greatest economic powers is both inevitable and (for the most part)
beneficial. This is the case even when China and the U.S. are arguing over
control of increasingly
obsolescent international financial institutions.China's effort to start the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank grows more popular by the day, despite U.S. resistance to the idea. The question is no longer whether the bank will fulfil an unmet need, but how best to ensure that it contributes to Asian growth -- and, not incidentally, draws China more deeply into the global financial order.
Now that the U.K. and several other European countries have joined the bank, holdouts such as Australia and South Korea are almost certain to jump in. This counts as a soft-power victory for China over the U.S., which reportedly lobbied allies not to sign up. But Washington largely has itself to blame. For years, the U.S. has called on China to bind itself to international norms and financial institutions -- without making room for it to do so. Congress persists in blocking efforts to dilute U.S. dominance of the World Bank or to increase China’s voting share at the International Monetary Fund, which stands at less than 4 percent, compared with almost 17 percent for the U.S.
That’s not to say the U.K. and others have joined the new bank out of altruism; London is clearly eager to establish itself as the main offshore trading hub for the renminbi. And the economic rationale for the bank -- in an era when the World Bank itself is facing something of an existential crisis and the global market for private capital is robust -- may be diminishing. Nevertheless, the region has huge infrastructure needs -- up to $800 billion worth every year, according to a much-cited study from the Asian Development Bank. American opposition to any new source of financing looks churlish and hypocritical.
Concerns that a Chinese-dominated institution might encourage lowered lending standards are overstated. If China wanted to hand out dodgy loans to buy loyalty, it could easily continue to do so on a bilateral basis. But that practice has largely backfired; Beijing faces souring debts from Myanmar to Sri Lanka to Ukraine. The whole point of working through a multilateral organization is for China to gain global legitimacy for its largess.
More
Japan, Australia signal approval of China-based AIIB
By Tetsushi
Kajimoto and Ian Chua TOKYO/SYDNEY,
(Reuters) - Japan signaled
cautious approval of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)
on Friday and said for the first time that, if conditions were met, it could
join the institution that the United States has warned against.Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey said there was "a lot of merit" in the bank and the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported that Canberra could formally decide to sign up when the full cabinet meets on Monday.
Japan, Australia and the South Korea, all major U.S. allies, are the notable regional absentees from the AIIB. The United States, worried about China's growing diplomatic clout, has questioned whether the AIIB will have sufficient standards of governance and environmental and social safeguards.
More
Another weekend, and spring is
finally here in the rapidly greening Thames Valley. The urban blossoms and
spring flowers are already in bloom. The rural blossoms and spring flowers are
just beginning to bloom. Bluebell season is about six weeks away. Sadly, as
spring arrives in the northern hemisphere, our global economy seems to be
already in autumn. For tiny unloved EUSSR hated Greece, it’s already a Siberian
winter. Germany seems to be deliberately pushing for “Grexident.” If it happens,
expect more bank failures across Europe. Have a great weekend everyone. Now where did I
put the candles?
"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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