$14.3 Trillion U.S. Debt Ceiling Threatened; Silver Bullion Buying Spree In India After Price Falls 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/16/2011 07:36 -0400

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that “the sharp drop in gold and silver prices has stimulated a surge in buying from India in a sign that consumers in the world’s largest gold-buying country retain faith in the decade-long bull story for precious metals.” Chhabil Jain, a Mumbai silver trader told the Financial Times that “demand for silver bars was going through the roof” and that “many vendors were starting to run low on stocks”. “People are booking incredible amounts of silver as they see the current drop in prices as a great opportunity to buy more ... most are buying for pure investment,” he added. Bloomberg reports this morning that silver was the most traded commodity in April. 

 

 

 

 

PIMCO's Largest "Equity" Holding - Gold 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/16/2011 08:15 -0400

Many have been wondering why Bill Gross, with his atavistic aversion to holding US paper, has not yet branched out into precious metals which are the natural hedge to surging rates (not to mention sovereign default). Probably the primary reason for this is that the firm's flagship credit funds do not have the mandate, nor permission, to invest in such asset classes. As such, the firm's $200+ billion TRF flagship fund, at least, is limited to fixed income securities. However, the same limitation does not apply to the firm's other funds, especially the recently launched $1.2 billion equity fund, the Pimco EqS Pathfinder. The fund was launched in 2009 under the stewardship of Anne Gudefin and Charles Lahr, who jointly ran the $16 billion Mutual Global Discover mutual fund. So in an interview recently granted to Fortune by Gudefin, we were not very surprised to hear her response on what her largest investment position is in: "The largest position in the fund is gold, which we think is a very good form of protection against what can go wrong. We were encouraged by the fact that a lot of the central banks, especially in Asia, are big buyers. We think that's an underlying trend that's very favorable for gold." So to all those asking why Gross does not invest in the yellow metal, here is your answer.Should the EqS Pathfinder fund grow in AUM, one can assume that an increasingly bigger pro rata portion will be allocated to precious metals.

Treasury Confirms Debt Ceiling To Be Breached Today; Will Tap Pension Funds 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/16/2011 09:45 -0400

It's official: the US credit card has officially been maxed out, just as we predicted on Wednesday, and throughout Q1 and Q2. The United States is expected to reach the legal limit on its debt later on Monday and will start dipping into federal retirement funds to give the country more room to borrow, a Treasury official said. As Reuters reports further, The U.S. Treasury will settle $72 billion in maturing bonds on Monday, which will push the country right up against its $14.294 trillion borrowing cap, the official said. To all those who thought only the insolvent government of Ireland will plunder pension funds, our condolences.

Two Chinese Bond Auctions Fail 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/16/2011 11:13 -0400

And while the US is no longer allowed to auction off debt, in China the PBoC appears to be no longer able to auction off debt. As Business China reports, "the central bank scheduled the auction of RMB 20 billion worth of one-year treasury bonds and RMB 10 billion in six-month bonds on the country’s interbank bond market for May 13. But banks, faced with tight liquidity, only purchased RMB 11.71 billion worth of one-year bonds and RMB 9.63 billion worth of six-month bonds, the report said." In other words, there was a nearly 50% miss on the 3 month auction. The key reason: "The reference yield of one-year treasury bonds was raised to 3.0246% from the previous issuance, while the bond yield of 182-day discounted treasury bonds was 2.91%, the paper said." It appears investors don't agree with the central planners that 3% is an appropriate rate to compensate them for surging inflation. That, and also the fact that banks suddenly have no liquidity: "Tighter liquidity was behind the under-subscription, as the central bank resumed selling three-year notes on May 12 after a hiatus of more than five months, a bank analyst who was not named was cited as saying. The central bank also raised banks’ RRRs by 0.5 percentage points on the same day, effective May 18, the fifth consecutive month its has raised RRRs this year." And so the Catch 22 emerges: the more China fights inflation through RRR or rate hikes, the lower the purchasing power of domestic banks to purchase bonds (and yes, the US deficit is just a few hundred billions dollars too wide for it to come to China's rescue). Should the "15 minute" inflationary conundrum continue to express itself, and China be forced to rise rates even longer, very soon the country, just like the US to which it is pegged monetarily, will also be unable to raise any incremental capital.

Here It Comes: Shi'ite Iran Sends "Solidarity" Flotilla To Sunni-Controlled Bahrain 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/16/2011 11:39 -0400

Those seeking the spark that will set off the next middle east conflagration can finally rest easy. Reuters reports that Shi'ite-ruled Iran sent a flotilla to Bahrain on Monday to show solidarity with mainly Shi'ite Muslim protesters, escalating tensions with the island kingdom that is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. As a reminder, Barhain is the nation that imposed a total and complete media blackout, going so far as to expel a Reuters correspondent, while most likely continuing its atrocities against protesting Shi'ites, which has raised the specter of a possible war erupting on the tiny island home, so critical to the US navy, and situated only 60 miles away from the world's largest Gwahar oil field. If Iran is serious about this latest escalation between Shi'ites and Sunnis, and it certainly appears to be, all hell may break loose as this could be the straw that not only breaks the proverbial camel's back but launches a full out Gulf States war (and woe to those short CL in a worst case scenario that sees the involvement of Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, not to mention all of the the middle eastern countries). 

 

 

 

 

 

Goldman On Why It Is Still Constructive On The EURUSD, And Thus The Market 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/16/2011 10:46 -0400

Stocks appear to have largely ignored the technical default of the US (fire and brimstone warnings from the tax expert notwithstanding), and instead appear to be tracking the EURUSD tick for tick, as every algo continues to be an inverse USD "hedge." Earlier today, Goldman's Thomas Stolper, who is danger of once again appearing rather foolish with his 1.50 EURUSD call (despite the pair rising as high as 1.4925 earlier), and has a stop at 1.35, released another note in which he said that while Europe may be insolvent, things are not really all that bad. "It appears FX markets and the Euro play the role of a safety valve with investors buying protection in case the sovereign situation gets notably worse...Having said this, apart from the Euro, things seem to stabilise otherwise. Greek 2yr yields have been stable, slightly below 24 percent for about 3 weeks and this despite no peripheral bond purchases by the ECB within the SMP program in recent weeks. Greek stocks appear to be stabilising at low levels as well, having been on a downtrend for several months....we remain structurally constructive on cyclical assets, including stocks and oil, which in turn suggests there could be further upside in the Euro, induced from cross asset correlations." Ergo, GS is now betting the ranch on a dead cat bounce which will lead the market dominating robots to an IMF like release of buying programs soon enough. And with that we have now seen it all.

Chinese Treasury Holdings Decline For Fifth Month In A Row, Biggest Drop Since November 2010 ^new

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/16/2011 09:20 -0400

• Central Banks
• Foreign Central Banks

At 9 am, Treasury released its March TIC data. While the headline number of $116 billion in total net TIC flows was slightly higher than February at $116.0 billion compared to $97.7 previously, the net number (offset by US transactions in foreign securities) missed expectations of $33 billion, printing at $24 billion. Notably, of the $116 billion in foreign flows into US securities, foreign central banks were ($10) billion (and privates were $126 billion), indicating that the central banker cartel may be in need of some additional funding soon. Net foreign purchases of long-term U.S. securities were $54.7 billion. Of this, net purchases by private foreign investors were $44.9 billion, and net purchases by foreign official institutions were $9.9 billion. Foreign holdings of dollar-denominated short-term U.S. securities, including U.S. Treasury bills and other custody liabilities, decreased $18.3 billion. Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury bills decreased $21.9 billion. And while we will provide a full breakdown later in the day, the key trend in US paper holdings continues to be China, whose total US debt holdings dropped for the 5th consecutive month in a row at $1144.9 billion, and the largest one month decline since November 2010.