Gold coiled, hyperinflation possible, Davies tells King World News

 

Today's Precious Metal Close Banging Moment Brought By The Fine People At The Comex

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/28/2011 14:00 -0500

It's 1:30 pm, the close of trading on the COMEX pit: do you know who is banging the close in your silver? Silver pits close at 1:25 pm, just as the flood in silver peaked. Gold followed suit, with its 1:30 pm close. This blatant attempt to dump PMs into the pit close and have silver and gold end trading on the books near the lows of the day merely confirms that "someone" is truly desperate to avoid an avalanche of margin calls. Of course, this uber-cheap trick works at best for a day or two. 

 

 

 

After $456 Billion In Treasury Monetizations Since The Start QE Lite, A Half-Time POMO Summary

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/28/2011 13:34 -0500

Now that the Fed is by far the biggest institutional holder of US debt, it is time to conduct a periodic review of what, how and when Brian Sack has been monetizing in the past two years. As a reminder, as part of QE1, the Fed purchased $300 billion worth of Treasurys, the balance going to MBS and agency securities. QE Lite and 2 have, so far, focused only on USTs: as Morgan Stanley summarizes, as of today, the NY Fed has purchased a total of $456bn Treasuries / TIPS since August 10, or the announcement of QE Lite. Since additional LSAPs were announced in November (or QE 2 proper), the Fed has purchased $380bn. As the Fed is now roughly half completed with QE2, here is where we stand. 

 

 

 

Simon Black: "The Market Is Telling Us That The Dollar Is Finished"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/28/2011 12:46 -0500

There’s major shift occurring right now in financial markets. Sure, the food and freedom riots that are spreading across the globe are a major indicator that civil unrest follows very closely behind resource shortages and economic turmoil… but there’s something else that I’ve noticed recently– it’s a sea change in the financial system. In the past, major crises normally caused investors to seek safe haven assets, and everything else equal, the dollar would rise. They call it a ‘flight to safety’, and investors would flock towards the perceived stability of US Treasury securities. Fast forward to today. Mubarak. Gaddafi. Khalifa. Al Said. Ben Ali. Etc. There is no shortage of turmoil right now… yet we are seeing the dollar get clobbered while gold, silver, and smaller currencies like the Swiss franc rise. This represents a major shift in the way that the market views risk. Ironically, this makes precious metals among the most attractive safe haven alternatives– the fact that they have no real functional value is a net positive. In other words, $20 wheat means blood in the streets. $2,000 gold only makes for pithy headlines, and its significance is easily dismissed when highly regarded sages like Warren Buffet dispute the notion of holding precious metals (nevermind he bought oodles of silver in the late 90s). 

 

 

 

CME Preempts NYSE Treasury Derivative Trading, Offers 65% Margin-Reducing Treasury Trading Solution

 

Primary Dealers Violently Expel Just Auctioned Off Three Year Bond, As Fed Monetizes Over Half PD Holdings In Under Two Weeks

 

Chaos Does Not Lead to Democracy

Posted: Feb 28 2011     By: Greg Hunter      Post Edited: February 28, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Filed under: USAWatchdog.com
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

Dear CIGAs,
Looking around the Middle East you can find turmoil and conflict almost everywhere you turn.  Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Oman and Egypt have all been caught up in a fire storm of anti-government protests.  Some appear to be mostly peaceful, such as the pro-democracy movement in Egypt; and some are descending into bloody civil conflict, such as Libya.  The multiple revolutions unfolding in the Middle East are really just getting started.  Even in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the smell of revolution is in the air and on the Internet.  Organizers in the Kingdom are calling for “DAY OF RAGE.”  Saudi King Abdullah is so worried he recently announced $37 billion dollars in subsidies and giveaways.  That’s enough to pay everybody in Saudi Arabia around $1,500 each.  Some look at it as a bribe to encourage citizens not to protest.  (Click here to read more.)  If Saudi Arabia falls, war will surely follow.
This changing of the guard across the Middle East will be much more impactful to the rest of the world than the fall of the Berlin Wall.  The main reason is oil.  The Middle East produces most of the world’s petroleum.  If supplies are curtailed and shipping lanes are cut, the world could plunge into economic ruin.
It took a little more than 2 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall to collapse the Soviet Union.  I look for the same pace of change in the Middle East.  The first domino to fall was tiny Tunisia, followed by mighty Egypt with a population of more than 80 million.  Egypt has an up-to-date army outfitted with the latest U.S. made weapons.  After Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, the military took control of the country. A writer at Foreignpolicy.com recently described the fall of Mubarak this way, “I wish I could be there today, in solidarity with the thousands of young and old Egyptians, to celebrate the demise of his dreadful regime. But what we are witnessing is more than the end of a government — it is nothing less than the birth of a new liberal order in Egypt. And that’s not only good news for the beleaguered citizens of Egypt, but also the United States and Israel.”
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