Baltic Dry Index. 478 +01 Brent Crude 36.55
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
Mark Twain.
As we wind down for the Christmas holiday, from tomorrow the LIR will
only be available at the website, today we close out some of 2015’s earlier
stories. Up first the banksters and central banksters. JP Morgan settles the
London Whale suit using the postage account. A real bankster wouldn’t cross the
street to pick up such a miserly bonus. The Libor scapegoat gets a minor
adjustment to his sentence that still keeps him away from the press for a
decade. Probably the intended result. And the sad reality of the Fed’s
forecasting.
"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
JPMorgan Chase to Pay $150 Million to Settle ‘Whale’ Suit
December 21, 2015 — 4:25 PM GMT Updated on December 21, 2015 — 5:35 PM
GMT
JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay $150 million to settle investor
claims that it hid from them as much as $6.2 billion in losses caused by a
trader dubbed the London Whale.
A group of pension funds accused JPMorgan of turning its chief
investment office in London into a “secret hedge fund” that caused the losses.
The bank told investors that the office’s primary role was managing risk when
in fact it was engaging in trades to generate profit, they said.
The settlement "reflects a reasonable compromise concerning the
merits of lead plaintiffs’ claims" and "the obstacles to prevailing
at trial," the pension funds said in a filing seeking court approval of
the deal.
Ohio pension funds and other plaintiffs in the case claim they incurred
tens of millions of dollars of losses because their fund managers were given
“false and misleading information.” Bruno Iksil, who amassed positions in
credit derivatives so big and market-moving he became known as the London
Whale, made the trades for the bank.
Joe Evangelisti, a JPMorgan spokesman, declined to comment on the
accord. The settlement was described in court papers in in New York on Dec. 18.
The complaint was filed on behalf of JPMorgan shareholders who bought
stock between Feb. 24, 2010, when the company filed its 2009 earnings report
with regulators, and May 21, 2012, when the bank announced it was halting a $15
billion share buyback program until it could control the losses.
The lead plaintiffs include the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, the
Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, and the state of Oregon.
More
Tom Hayes Libor Jail Sentence Cut to 11 Years, Conviction Upheld
December 21, 2015 — 2:11 PM GMT Updated on December 21, 2015 — 5:05 PM
GMT
Tom Hayes, the former UBS Group AG and Citigroup Inc.
trader dubbed “Rain Man” by ex-colleagues, had his jail sentence for rigging
Libor cut to 11 years after judges said his punishment was too harsh.A panel of three of the U.K.’s most senior judges reduced the 14-year sentence, one of the country’s longest for a non-violent criminal, following a two-day hearing. The court upheld Hayes’s conviction for conspiracy to defraud.
“We are of the view that taking into account all the circumstances -- in particular his age, his non-managerial position in the two banks, and his mild Asperger’s condition -- that the overall sentence was longer than was necessary to punish the appellant and to deter others,” the judges said in a written statement.
Hayes was the first individual to face trial for rigging the London interbank offered rate since investigators started probing the benchmark seven years ago. He was accused of masterminding an elaborate four-year campaign to rig the yen variant of Libor that involved more than 20 individuals at half a dozen firms in three countries.
Socially awkward, but highly gifted, Hayes became the public face of a scandal that brought the reputation of the banking industry to a low ebb. A dozen banks and brokerages have been fined about $9 billion for the activities and similar abuses by regulators around the world.
More
The Keynesian Recovery Meme Is About To Get Mugged, Part 1
by David Stockman •
Yellen said at least one thing of importance last week, but not in a
good way. She confessed to the frightening truth that the FOMC formulates
its policies and actions based on forecasts of future
economic developments.
My point is not simply that our monetary politburo couldn’t forecast its
way out of a paper bag; that much they have proved in spades during their last
few years of madcap money printing.
Notwithstanding the most aggressive monetary stimulus in recorded history—-84
months of ZIRP and $3.5 trillion of bond purchases—–average real GDP growth has
barely amounted to 50% of the Fed’s preceding year forecast; and even that
shortfall is understated owing to the BEA’s systemic suppression of the
GDP deflator.
----What I am getting at is that it’s inherently impossible to forecast the economic future, but that is especially true when the forecasting model is an obsolete Keynesian relic which essentially assumes a closed US economy and that balance sheets don’t matter.
Actually, balance sheets now matter more than anything else. The $225
trillion of debt weighing on the world economy——up an astonishing 5.5X in
the last two decades—– imposes a stiff barrier to growth that our
Keynesian monetary suzerains ignore entirely.
Likewise, the economy is now seamlessly global, meaning
that everything which counts such as labor supply and wage trends,
capacity utilization and investment rates and the pace of business activity and
inventory stocks is planetary in nature.
----So they are raising money market rates by a smidgeon to confirm the US economy’s strength and that the Keynesian nirvana of full employment is near at hand.
No it isn’t! These academic pettifoggers are so blinded by their tinker
toy macro-model that they can’t even see the flashing red lights
warning of recession just ahead.
Just consider the most recent data on wholesale sales and
inventory. This sector of the domestic economy embodies the leading edge
of business activity, meaning that trends in wholesale level sales and
inventory stocking are advance indicators of the general macroeconomic
outlook.
Needless to say, the soaring inventory-sales ratio is not a sign that
“escape velocity” is just around the corner. Contrariwise, whenever the ratio
has busted through 1.30X in the past, what came next was a recession.
More
Next, more on the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money, communist money, gambling money. What could possibly go wrong with Yellen & Co., Carney & Co., Draghi & Co., running the last act? “There is $1.2 quadrillion invested in derivatives alone.” Derivatives are a zero sum game, someone somewhere has to lose over half a quadrillion.
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, Jamie Dimon….
Apologies to Richard Gauntlett.
http://www.panto-scripts.co.uk/html/pantomime-script.html
Here’s all the money in the world, in one chart
Published: Dec 21, 2015 11:17 a.m. ET
There is $1.2 quadrillion invested in derivatives alone.
Ever wonder how much money there is in the world?The answer is complicated, which you might expect, but not because of the difficulty of tallying up all the rather large numbers. Rather, it’s more about which parameters are used to define “money.”
“The amount of money that exists changes depending on how we define it. The more abstract definition of money we use, the higher the number is,” said Jeff Desjardins, an editor of Visual Capitalist, who put together an infographic to answer this question.
For purists, who believe money refers only to currencies such as bank notes, coins, and money deposited in savings or checking accounts, the total is somewhere around $80.9 trillion.
But for those preferring a broader interpretation, including digital currency bitcoin, above-ground gold supply, and funds invested in various financial products like derivatives, the amount is in the quadrillions.
This is what a quadrillion looks like written out: 1,000,000,000,000,000.
Funds invested in derivatives alone total $1.2 quadrillion. In fact, there is more money in derivatives than in all the stock markets combined, which is a comparatively paltry $70 trillion. The U.S. accounts for roughly half of the global market cap thanks to companies like Apple Inc. AAPL, +1.23% Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, +0.52% and Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +1.29%
Investment in commercial real estate, often the most visible symbol of wealth, pales in comparison to stocks or derivatives at $7.6 trillion.
More
Elsewhere, bad news just keeps coming in Brazil.
Brazil's New Finance Minister Faces a Big Test After Friday's Rout
December 20,
2015 — 9:34 PM GMT Updated on December 21, 2015 — 4:30 AM GMT
Nelson Barbosa could, of course, turn out to be the man who fixes Brazil’s
finances, tames soaring inflation and revives the sinking economy, but
investors sure aren’t betting on it.As word spread across Sao Paulo trading floors Friday that Barbosa would be the country’s next finance minister, replacing the beleaguered Joaquim Levy, markets plunged. By day’s end, the currency was down 2.6 percent, stocks 3 percent.
That harsh reception is the exact opposite of the broad rally that greeted Levy when he took the post a year earlier. Levy, though, was the market’s golden boy, with his University of Chicago-training, asset-manager experience and reputation as a fierce budget cutter. Barbosa, while generally respected by analysts for his technocratic skills, isn’t seen as being quite as tight-fisted on spending, a perception he only reinforced when suggesting Friday that he was amenable to granting subsidies to some industries.
What’s more, the crisis that Barbosa will step into when he’s officially sworn in Monday is markedly more severe than it was a year ago. The economy is now shrinking at a 7 percent annual pace; the budget deficit has swelled to the widest in at least two decades; the country’s investment-grade rating is gone; Congress is bogged down in impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff; and the greatest corruption scandal the country has ever known is showing little sign of abating. If Levy couldn’t stem the crisis when it was more manageable before, what reason is there to believe Barbosa will now?
More
In oil news, Norway confirms NATO member Turkey is deeply involved in financing the moslem fascist ISIS terrorist organisation. What Norway’s report doesn’t say is how deeply is the USA involved by giving Turkey the green light or by turning a blind eye.
Most Smuggled ISIS Oil Goes to Turkey, Sold at Low Prices – Norwegian Report
20 December 2015
A newly-leaked report on illegal oil sales by Islamic State (IS,
previously ISIS/ISIL), which was ordered to be compiled by Norway, has revealed
that most of the IS-smuggled oil has been destined for Turkey, where it is sold
off at bargain low prices.
Norwegian daily Klassekampen leaked details of the report, which was put
together by Rystad Energy, an independent oil and gas consulting firm, at the
request of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.
“Large amounts of oil have been smuggled across the border to Turkey
from IS-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq,”Klassekampen cited the report
as saying. “[The] oil is sent by tankers via smuggling routes across
the border [and] is sold at greatly reduced prices, from $25 to $45 a barrel.”
The crude is reportedly sold on the black market at greatly reduced
prices, while the Brent benchmark is currently trading at $35-$50 per barrel.
To compile the report, which is dated from July, Rystad Energy used its
own database as well as sources in the region.
“Exports happen in a well-established black market via Turkey,” the report
concluded. “Many of the smugglers and corrupt border guards, who helped
Saddam Hussein avoid international sanctions, are now helping IS export oil and
import cash.”
In the beginning of December, the Russian Defense Ministry released
evidence which it said shows most of the illegal oil trade by IS going to
Turkey.
Russia has earlier said it is aware of three main oil smuggling routes
to Turkey, and Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov presented video evidence
of operations, as well as detailed maps, at a briefing for journalists.
“Today, we are presenting only some of the facts that confirm that a
whole team of bandits and Turkish elites stealing oil from their neighbors is
operating in the region,” Antonov said, adding that this oil“in
large quantities” enters the territory of Turkey via “live oil pipelines,”consisting
of thousands of oil trucks.
The data directly implicated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in
the oil trade with IS. “According to our data, the top political
leadership of the country – President Erdogan and his family – is involved in
this criminal business.”
More
"We shouldn't pour cold water on everything. We, the eight or nine players in global investment banking, have a very good future."
Deutsche Bank, CEO Josef Ackermann. Davos, January 2007.
At the Comex silver depositories Monday
final figures were: Registered 39.86 Moz, Eligible 118.69 Moz, Total 158.55
Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, China’s Fanya Metals Exchange, a subject we’ve covered a few times
before. This time Fanya seems to be
disappearing along with its founder. Where have we heard this story before.
The founder of a Chinese metal exchange has vanished
@sophia_yanDecember 18, 2015: 2:16 AM ET
Shan
Jiuliang, the chairman of Hong Kong-listed Imagi International Holdings, was
last spotted at a board meeting on Oct. 15. He hasn't attended any meetings
since, and the company "has not received any notifications from Mr. Shan
or any government authorities about his whereabouts," according to a stock exchange
filing.
Shan is at the center of an ongoing investment scandal at Fanya Metals
Exchange, a trading platform he founded in 2010. The exchange dabbled in metals commonly used in electronics, from silver to tungsten, and offered investment products. At its peak, the exchange was handling around 43 billion yuan ($6.6 billion) in assets for over 200,000 investors.
In July, at least 27 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) in investments were frozen by Fanya. Investors also stopped receiving payments from a financial product the exchange said would provide annual returns of 13.7%, according to state media.
Related: Chinese executives keep going missing
When the exchange collapsed -- which happened around the same time Chinese stock markets crashed this summer -- cheated investors organized a number of protests, clamoring for their money back.
Even before this year's bizarre set of events, government regulators were scrutinizing the exchange.
Shan is one of numerous business executives that have gone missing lately in China. Few details are available, but many of those detained are being investigated for insider trading as part of a wider anti-corruption probe.
Government authorities have been quick to assign blame for the summer stocks crash, arresting and accusing finance executives, journalists and others of rumor-mongering and falsely engineering a bull market.
The Fanya exchange website is currently down, and the company could not be reached for comment.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/18/investing/fanya-metals-missing-founder/index.html?iid=hp-toplead-dom
Below, the scandal that was still fresh in every
traders mind when I first started out in commodities in London all the way back
in 1968. When the commodities depression finally hits bottom, I have every
confidence another scandal emerge yet again. The good old days will be back.
How The Salad Oil Swindle Of 1963 Nearly Crippled The NYSE
Bryan Taylor,
Global Financial Data Nov. 23, 2013, 9:02 AM
Fifty years ago, John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November
22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. The assassination not only shocked the nation,
but shook the stock market as well. However, very few people have heard about
The Great Salad Oil Swindle which nearly crippled the New York Stock Exchange
that weekend. Officials at the NYSE took advantage of the closure of the
exchange to keep the crisis caused by the swindle from spreading further. Here is
what happened at the NYSE while the nation focused on the President’s funeral.
Salad Oil, Cornered and Quartered
The Great Salad Oil Swindle was carried out by Anthony “Tino” De
Angelis, who traded vegetable oil (soybean oil) futures which was an important
ingredient in salad oil. De Angelis had previously been involved in a swindle
involving the National School Lunch Act and the Adolph Gobel Co. When it was
discovered that he had overcharged the government and delivered over 2 million
pounds of uninspected meat, he ended up bankrupt. Con-men don’t stop being
cons, they just try to learn from their mistakes and make more money the next
time around.
Tino de Angelis had learned that government programs were a way to make
easy money, so he started the Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Refining Co. in 1955
to take advantage of the U.S. Government’s Food for Peace program. The goal of
the program was to sell surplus goods to Europe at low prices. Initially,
De Angelis sold massive quantities of shortening and other vegetable oil
products to Europe, and when this worked, he expanded into cotton and soybeans.
By 1962, De Angelis was a large enough player in commodity markets that
he thought he could corner the soybean oil market, allowing him to make even
more money. Always the schemer, De Angelis’s plan was to use his large
inventories of commodities as collateral to get loans from Wall Street bank and
finance companies. Buying soybean oil futures would drive up the price of
his vegetable oil holdings, which would increase both the value of his
inventories and allow him to profit from his futures contracts. De
Angelis could use these profits not only to line his own pockets, but to pay
his staff, make contributions to the community, and in one case, pay the hospital
bill of a government official.
American Express had recently created a new division that specialized in
field warehousing, which made loans to businesses using inventories as
collateral. American Express wrote De Angelis warehouse receipts for millions
of pounds of vegetable oil, which he took to a broker and discounted the
receipts for cash. This proved to be an easy way to get money, so De Angelis
began falsifying warehouse receipts for vegetable oil he didn’t have.
American Express sent out inspectors to make sure that De Angelis had
the vegetable oil that acted as collateral, but what they didn’t know is that
many of the tanks were filled mostly with water with a minimum of oil floating
on the top to fool the inspectors, or that some of the tanks were connected
with pipes to other tanks so the oil could be transferred between tanks when
the inspectors went from one tank to the other.
If American Express had done their homework, they would have realized
that De Angelis’s reported vegetable oil “holdings” were greater than the
inventories of the entire United States as reported by the Department of
Agriculture. Unsatisfied with the American Express loans, De Angelis was
able to get additional loans from Bunge Ltd., Staley, Proctor and Gamble, and
The Bank of America. By the time the swindle collapsed, De Angelis had gotten
loans from a total of 51 companies.
As a result of attempted bribery, delivery mistakes, and other factors,
the inspectors were eventually tipped off about De Angelis’s fraud. Allied
Crude was supposed to have $150 million in vegetable oil as collateral, but
only had $6 million. When the inspectors found water in the tanks, and not oil,
the gig was up.
More
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and
institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.Walter Bagehot.
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this
new section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable
cheap AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21st century
onwards? DC? A quantum computer next?
How an Australian Mining Town Became a Solar Power Trailblazer
December 20,
2015 — 10:17 PM GMT
Broken Hill spawned the world’s largest mining company and generated
more than $75 billion in wealth. Now as its minerals ebb, Australia’s
longest-lived mining city is looking to tap a more abundant resource.
On the sun-baked edge of the Outback city, 700 miles west of
Sydney, a solar farm the size of London’s Hyde Park shimmers like an oasis
— its panels sending enough electricity to the national grid to power
17,000 homes a year. Combined with a sister plant, the AGL Energy
Ltd. and First Solar Inc.project is the largest of its type in the
southern hemisphere.
Clean energy advocates are counting on the 140-hectare (346-acre)
development to make Broken Hill, which at one time boasted the
world’s most successful silver mine, a trailblazer once again.
The birthplace of Broken Hill Proprietary Co., whose 2001 merger with
Billiton Plc formed the mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd., will help pave the way
for more projects that profit from the sun’s power.
“It’s giving birth to the large-scale solar industry in Australia,” said
Adam Mackett, AGL’s project manager, as he strolled among the 678,000 solar
panels under a cloudless blue sky. “Hopefully, from Broken Hill’s point of
view, they’ll see this as the start of something bigger.”
Australia gets more solar radiation per square meter than any other
continent. Yet while the nation leads the world in installing rooftop solar
panels, it trails 19 countries from Bulgaria to Ukraine in producing the power
at solar farms.
Solar
accounted for about 2 percent of Australia’s electricity generation last year,
according to the Clean Energy Council, an industry group in Melbourne. Fossil
fuels, by contrast, made up almost 87 percent of the mix, reflecting the
nation’s reliance on mining.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November
DJIA: +25 Down. NASDAQ:
+121 Down. SP500: +45 Down.
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