Baltic Dry Index. 580 unch. Brent Crude 57.92
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing
better to do than point fingers at us [China]. First, China doesn’t export
revolution; second, China doesn’t export hunger and poverty; third, China
doesn’t come and cause you headaches, what more is there to be said?”
President Xi Jinping
We open this morning with yet more sign of serious distress in China. A
slowing global economy lowers all boats. Not to worry though, this being China,
they are still expected to hit the GDP official target of 7 percent on
Wednesday.
China’s Export Engine Loses Steam, Adding to Growth Concern
3:03 AM BST April 13,
2015
China’s exports unexpectedly
slumped in March, eroding the outlook for one of the economy’s better
performing areas in recent months.
Overseas shipments fell 14.6
percent last month from a year earlier in yuan value, the customs
administration said in Beijing on Monday. That compared with the median
estimate for an 8.2 percent rise in a Bloomberg News survey of analysts.
Imports slid 12.3 percent, leaving a trade surplus of 18.16 billion yuan ($3
billion).
The export declines come as China
grapples with overcapacity and a property slump. The country’s central bank has
relaxed rules on home purchasing, cut interest rates twice and reduced the
ratio of reserves banks are required to set aside in the past six months, with
economists forecasting further stimulus.
“Consumption is weak, investment
is decelerating, and now exports have come in as weaker-than-expected,” said
Liu Xuezhi, an economist with Bank of Communications Co. in Shanghai.
“Downward
pressure on economic growth is increasing, making it more urgent for the
government to start rolling out more pro-growth policies.”
The Australian dollar, seen as a
proxy for China’s economy due to Australia’s shipments of raw materials, fell
after the release.
----In U.S. dollar terms, exports fell 15 percent from a year earlier while imports slipped 12.7 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $3.08 billion in March. Shipments to the U.S., European Union and Japan all declined.
The “dismal” March export
performance comes despite a higher number of working days and a low base and
will spur fears that foreign demand is being undermined by a stronger yuan,
Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist at Credit Agricole SA in Hong Kong, wrote
in note after the release.
More
Below, one of the best money management pros goes all
wobbly in the billionaires club in tony North Palm Beach. Does America really have the luxury of waiting
for the rematch, Bush v Clinton, 2016?
"Those entrapped by the herd instinct are drowned in the deluges of history. But there are always the few who observe, reason, and take precautions, and thus escape the flood. For these few gold has been the asset of last resort."
Antony C. Sutton
Stan Druckenmiller's "Horrific Sense" Of Deja Vu: "I Know It's Tempting To Invest, But This Will End Very Badly"
Stan Druckenmiller, as we have previously noted here and here, is not one to shy away from criticizing the Federal Reserve for taking unnecessary risks in public. But, as Bloomberg reports, he’s also done so in more intimate settings...The billionaire investor, who has one of the best long term track records in money management, told an audience at the Lost Tree Club in North Palm Beach, Florida, that trouble is looming...
And on inflation this could end
up being inflationary. It could also end up being deflationary because if you
print money and save banks, the yield curve goes negative and they can't earn
any money or let's say the price of oil goes to $30, you could get a
deflationary event. If you had asked me this question in late '03, I'd have
said well, this probably ends with inflation, but by the time we needed to, we
figured out no, this is going to end in deflation. So, the fed keeps talking about deflation, but
there is nothing more deflationary than creating a phony asset bubble, having a
bunch of investors plow into it and then having it pop. That is deflationary.
----But the point I was making earlier is there was
a great enabler, and that was the Federal Reserve... pushing people out the
risk curve. And what
I just can't understand for the life of me, we've done Dodd-Frank, we got 5,000
people watching Jamie Dimon when he goes to the bathroom. I mean all this stuff
going on to supposedly prevent the next financial crisis. And if you look to me
at the real root cause behind the financial crisis, we're doubling down.
Our monetary policy is so much more reckless and so
much more aggressively pushing the people in this room and everybody else out
the risk curve that we're doubling down on the same policy that really put us
there and enabled those bad actors [ph.] to do what they do. Now, no matter
what you want to say about them, if we had had five or six percent interest
rates, it would have never happened because they couldn't have gotten the money
to do it
More.
In oil news, despite last week’s price bounce, the rout of the frackers
goes on. Next comes a wave of US bankruptcies as the frackers can’t borrow any
more to continue drilling for replacement oil. Not to worry though, Saudi
Arabia has a plan to save the Saudi oil
industry. There will be plenty of cheap oil for oil, just not cheap oil
produced by fracking.
Oil Rigs Tumble Again, Showing the Cuts Aren't Over Yet
18th straight decline is worse than
expected
6:12 PM BST April 10,
2015
The number of U.S. rigs drilling
for oil fell the most in a month, a sign that America's cutbacks aren't
over yet.
Drillers idled 42 oil rigs
(excluding gas rigs), reducing the number to 760, Baker Hughes reported on
Friday. The rig count has dropped 53 percent since October, an unprecedented
retreat, as the decline in oil prices has made production less profitable. The
median forecast from a Bloomberg survey of 11 #RigCountGuesses on Twitter was
for a reduction of 9 rigs.
But production isn't slowing yet,
and new efficiencies in U.S. drilling and pumping may make raw numbers of rigs
in the field misleading. The U.S. will pump 9.2 million barrels a day this
year, the most since 1972, despite the fewest rigs in the field in almost four
years, according to the Energy Information Administration.
More
Saudi Arabia’s Plan to Extend the Age of Oil
11:00 PM BST April 12, 2015
---- Naimi, 79, dominated the debate at the November meeting, according to
officials briefed on the closed-door proceedings. He told his OPEC counterparts
they should maintain output to protect market share from rising supplies of
U.S. shale oil, which costs more to get out of the ground and thus becomes less
viable as prices fall. In December, he said much the same thing in a press
interview, arguing that it was “crooked logic” for low-cost producers such as
Saudi Arabia to pump less to balance the market.
Supply was only half the
calculus, though. While the new Saudi stance was being trumpeted as a war on
shale, Naimi’s not-so-invisible hand pushing prices lower also addressed an
even deeper Saudi fear: flagging long-term demand.
Naimi and other Saudi leaders
have worried for years that climate change and high crude prices will boost
energy efficiency, encourage renewables, and accelerate a switch to alternative
fuels such as natural gas, especially in the emerging markets that they count
on for growth. They see how demand for the commodity that’s created the
kingdom’s enormous wealth—and is still abundant beneath the desert sands—may be
nearing its peak. This isn’t something the petroleum minister discusses in
depth in public, given global concern about carbon emissions and efforts to
reduce reliance on fossil fuels. But Naimi acknowledges the trend. “Demand will
peak way ahead of supply,” he told reporters in Qatar three years ago. If
growth in oil consumption flattens out too soon, the transition could be
wrenching for Saudi Arabia, which gets almost half its gross domestic product
from oil exports.
Last week, in a speech in Riyadh,
Naimi said Saudi Arabia would stand “firmly and resolutely” with others who
oppose any attempt to marginalize oil consumption. “There are those who are
trying to reach international agreements to limit the use of fossil fuel, and
that will damage the interests of oil producers in the long-term,” he said.
U.S. State Department cables
released by WikiLeaks show that the Saudis’ interest in prolonging the world’s
dependence on oil dates back at least a decade. In conversations with
colleagues and U.S. diplomats, Naimi responded to the American fixation on
“security of supply” with the Saudi need for “security of demand,” according to
a 2006 embassy dispatch. “Saudi officials are very concerned that a climate
change treaty would significantly reduce their income,” James Smith, the U.S.
ambassador to Riyadh, wrote in a 2010 memo to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
“Effectively, peak oil arguments have been replaced by peak demand.”
More
In botched US War Party Kiev Coup
news, it’s a case of buyer’s remorse to the Poles of west Ukraine’s Lviv. In
better news from the War Party, no war mongers have been hurt so far nor lost
any money or sleep.
War and poverty bring doubt to heartland of Ukraine's pro-Europe revolt
LVIV, Ukraine |
(Reuters) - When Ukrainians toppled a pro-Russian president last year,
nowhere was the euphoria greater than in Lviv, a short drive from the EU
border, where people have dreamt for generations of escaping Moscow's orbit to
join the West.More than a year of war and economic collapse later, nowhere else has the disillusionment been felt more harshly.
"Everyone thought Ukraine would suddenly turn into Poland," said mechanic Taras Yakubovsky, sitting by a cast-iron woodburner in his small garage, where work has dried up because customers can no longer afford car repairs. "But we've become more like Europe's Somalia."
Part of the Austrian empire until World War I, this city of baroque churches and cobbled streets looks more like Mitteleuropa than the ex-Soviet Union, which it joined only after Red Army tanks rolled in and seized it from Poland in 1939.
Its residents, known for their fierce nationalist streak and pro-European outlook, traveled by busload to Kiev last year, forming the core of the "Maidan" movement on the capital's central square that toppled President Viktor Yanukovich after he rejected a free trade pact with the EU.
When that revolt was followed by war with pro-Russian separatists in the distant east, Lviv residents were among the most enthusiastic volunteers. The furthest major city in Ukraine from the war zone, it has suffered some of the highest per capita losses in a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people.
But after a tough winter and with no sign of economic pain ending any time soon, support for the war is eroding, even here. According to a poll by research company GfK, over half of residents of western regions believe the government must avoid further bloodshed at any cost.
"We understand it's difficult times, but they're tossing away money on the war, and someone in Kiev will definitely be making some money off it too," Yakubovsky said.
Donations to the war effort have dropped noticeably, said part-time volunteer Yuriy Yatnisa, 24, standing in an old military tent that serves as a makeshift center to collect money and food for the troops at the front.
More
We end for the day
with “only in modern dumbed down England” news. Right out of “Dads Army” circa
1940. Who thought it was a good idea to fire a flaming cannonball over a 19th
century thatched boathouse. The kids
liked the one-off though.
In
this Castle, we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics!
Lord
Kelvin, with apologies to Homer Simpson.
Warwick Castle cannonball show sets fire to historic boathouse
Huge fire engulfs boathouse of medieval castle after it is struck by a burning cannonball fired from its famed trebuchet
Hundreds of tourists have been evacuated from Warwick Castle after a burning cannonball fired from the world's largest working siege machine destroyed a medieval boathouse by fire.Sparks from the cannonball which was fired from the wooden trebuchet ignited the roof of the ancient boathouse causing a blaze on Friday night.
More than 30 firefighters
attended the scene after the fire broke out at 5.54pm.
Investigations are taking place
at the Castle into the cause of the blaze.
Holidaymakers, many with young
children enjoying the last day of the Easter break, were watching the final
launch of the trebuchet when the thatched roof caught fire.
Witness Heather Taylor, 42, had
travelled from Birmingham with her six-year-old son Ethan, to watch the
cannonball launch.
She said: "The trebuchet
launched the flaming cannonball but as it flew almost over the boathouse sparks
could clearly be seen coming off it and the high winds must have sent them onto
the roof of the boathouse.
---- "The place [hopefully not the boathouse. Ed.] was packed with lots of young children and families. We were all evacuated and it was quite scary.
"It was shocking how fast
the fire took hold.
"The cannonball actually
appeared to land behind the boat house but it was obviously too close.
"It's such a shame because
we the boat house has only just been re-thatched and we watched a chap
thatching it before the big show. It's a medieval building so it's a big
loss."
---- The Trebuchet Fireball Spectacular is one of the Castle's main attractions.
It was built in 2005, stands 60ft
high, weighs 22 tonnes and has been fired at least 6,500 times.
The historic boathouse, which was
destroyed in the blaze, dates back to 1896 when the 5th Earl, Frances Greville,
had it built to house an electric boat which he powered by batteries charged
from the electricity generated by the castle's mill.
A spokesperson for Warwick Castle
said the trebuchet would continue firing shots but only dry ones rather than
fireballs until the investigation into the blaze is completed.
More
Warwick Castle.
Operator!
Give me the number for 911!
Lord
Kelvin, with apologies to Homer Simpson.
At the Comex silver
depositories Friday final figures were: Registered 63.24 Moz, Eligible 111.83
Moz, Total 170.37 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Back to the usual suspects again today. This
morning step forwards the Italians and the world’s oldest bank. Europe is
fixed, as they say, as in nailed or screwed. Whoever wins the UK election, the
UK needs to leave the EUSSR fast before the whole corrupt continent collapses
in acrimony or worse.
“Call
it the Nomura test. If this is something Nomura would do to its clients, don't
do it."
With
apologies to Felix Salmon.
Monte Paschi Exposure to Nomura Exceeds Regulatory Capital Limit
10:14 AM BST April
11, 2015
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
SpA said its exposure to Nomura Holdings Inc exceeds the 25 percent limit on
total capital imposed by regulators after losses last year reduced capital
levels.
Monte Paschi’s exposure to Nomura
was about 35 percent of its regulatory capital base at the end of 2014, Italy’s
third-biggest bank said in a statement late Friday. The Siena-based lender has
9.9 billion euros ($10.5 billion) of capital, according to its 2014 annual report,
implying a financial exposure to the Japanese lender of about 3.5 billion
euros.
“The bank is reviewing all
possible options to reduce the exposure within limits,” it said in the
statement, following a request by market regulator Consob.
Ties to Nomura includes a 2009
transaction dubbed “Alexandria” that was allegedly used to hide losses from
Monte Paschi accounts. The deal is currently under investigation by Milan
prosecutors who suspect former officials at two banks of false accounting and
market manipulation. Monte Paschi had to restate its accounts in 2013 to
reflect a loss that had allegedly been masked by the Nomura transaction and a
similar deal with another lender. The bank, which has been bailed out twice by
Italy, is now seeking to plug a 2.1 billion-euro capital gap that emerged in
the European Central Bank’s health-check by raising 3 billion euros from
investors.
The ECB gave an overall
unfavorable assessment of Monte Paschi in its so-called SREP supervisory review
earlier this year, the bank also said in the statement. The ECB cited the
bank’s high credit risk related to bad loans, its difficulty of achieving
adequate levels of profitability and inability to generate capital organically,
as well as reputational and legal risks due to the involvement of the bank in
various legal proceedings. Monte Paschi said the ECB has urged merger
operations with other banks in addition to the approved capital increase in
order to boost profitability and capital generation.
More"Gold bears the confidence of the world's millions, who value it far above the promises of politicians, far above the unbacked paper issued by governments as money substitutes. It has been that way through all recorded history. There is no reason to believe it will lose the confidence of people in the future."
Oakley R. Bramble
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March
DJIA: +118 Down. NASDAQ: +209 Down. SP500: +161 Down.
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