Everybody Print! BOJ Will Reenter Global Currency Devaluation Frenzy To Kill Yen

Following the USDJPY touching on a fresh post-WWII low earlier today, not only has Noda made the transition from simply watching to outright panicking to being on suicide watch, but the BOJ has finally freaked out (something we predicted back in April only to be just 6 months ahead of the curve). Case in point: the Nikkei just reported that the BOJ "will discuss additional monetary easing measures to help blunt the mighty yen's impact on the economy when its policy board convenes for a meeting Thursday." Translation: printing goes to Japan, now that it is widely expected that no matter what Europe does, the outcome will be one of EUR weakness. Everyone knows the proclivities of the deranged Chairsatan (and for those who don't just observed the dramatic backwardation in Crude observed here first yesterday), which only leaves Shirikawa. And he has just had enough. Which in turn explains the surge in gold: with the entire world once again entering hyprintspeed mode, the only safe repository of value is now exclusively gold (sorry CHF, you are no longer relevant: thank Hildebrand and the goonies at the SNB who are quietly padding up the asset side of their balance sheet with hundreds of billions of soon to be even more worthless euros).

 

 

Gold $1700

The low prices sure were fun while they lasted. In other news, Spam is still cheap. And now, it is time for the CME to scramble to reinforce "risk management" and send margins to 100% because this aggression against "sound" money will simply not stand (oddly enough the 14% or so jump in the ES and various other equities contracts was not sufficient to prompt corresponding margin hikes).

Alasdair Macleod: Why sound money is a basic human right

$35 Billion 2 Year Bonds Price At 0.281% As Direct Bidders Flee, Well Below Three Month Libor

The US Treasury just completed the first of 3 bond sales, which as Zero Hedge observed last week, will take total US Debt to GDP to over 100%. Today's auction was more or less plain vanilla, with $35 billion in 2 Year bonds pricing at 0.281%, just inside of the 0.29% When Issued, higher than the September 0.249%, and with the Bid To Cover declining modestly from a near record 3.76 to 3.64 this month, which however is still the second best BTC for 2011. That said, the interest was not due to Directs who saw their take down share drop from 12.16% (and an LTM average of 14.30%) to just 8.21%, the lowest since February 2011. Yet while Directs (China's London-based buyers, PIMCO) Dealers stepped up and bought 52.57% of the auction, the highest since June. Naturally as has been the case recently, the bond priced well inside 3M USD Libor of 0.422%, something which in an era pre-central planning would be quite laughable, but now: perfectly normal.

Americans Scrambling To Refinance: HARP Beats Out McRib, NFLX As Hottest Topic On Google Trends

Silver and Copper are parting ways today

Trader Dan at Trader Dan's Market Views - 39 minutes ago

Both of these metals have been moving in lockstep recently as risk trades were either jammed on or taken off. Silver has been trading like an industrial metal during such times. Today it is moving like a safe haven metal. Very interesting developments to say the least. In the process it is now trading solidly above critical resistance near the $32.50 level. If it can hold these gains, it will be on target for a shot towards $34. 

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October 25 2011: Tricks for the People, Treats for the Banks

Ilargi at The Automatic Earth - 49 minutes ago

National Photo Co. The EU meets in Brussels December 1, 1923"Marine-Army game, Griffith Stadium, Washington D.C." Marines carried the day 7-0. Ilargi: There were really people out there who really thought there would be an announcement for a plan in Europe on Wednesday? OK. Look, Merkel and Sarkozy said the end of the month. They always meant to use all that time, and they now need it even more

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Is Gold resuming its Safe Haven Status?

Trader Dan at Trader Dan's Market Views - 1 hour ago

In a departure from recent price action in which it has been acting more like a "risk" asset rather than a safe haven asset, gold is moving higher alongside of both the US Dollar and the US Treasury market. It appears that traders are becoming increasingly "jittery" over developments in Europe concering the bank recapitalization plan and the Stability Mechanism. Safe havens flows are definitely returning to gold based on what we are witnessing today. Thus far the volume has been very strong on the breakout above key resistance at the $1680 level with the market challenging overhead ... more » 

The More Depressed And Broke US Consumers Are, The More Worthless Trinkets They Buy

We last presented the chart below following the most recent UMichigan consumer confidence data. We update it for today's Conference Board update, which regardless of how one looks at the data, confirms that either consumer confidence, or retail data is being either massively manipulated, or there has been a revolution in mass psychology whereby the more depressed and hence broke a US consumer is, the more they shop. But going back to reality, this divergence is absolutely unsustainable, and we are certain that any and all calls by fly-by-night journalism majors calling for an end to the US recession, driven purely by an overhyped short covering rally in the stock market, will shortly, and mercifully, cease.

Guest Post: Waiting For Lehman

We have good reason to be waiting for Lehman—our current situation is simple and stark: Sovereign nations and individual citizens are over-indebted—to the point where they cannot pay back what they owe. We all know that this overindebtedness at the sovereign and individual level is going to end, and end badly: Worse than 2008.  So along with everyone else, I’ve been waiting for Lehman—and fruitlessly trying to guess which will be the Lehman-like event this time around. Will it be the bankruptcy of Dexia? BofA? UniCredit or SocGen or one of the Spanish banks? Will it be a war in the Middle East? Bad producer index numbers from China? A fart by a day-trader in Uzbekistan?

When will Lehman arrive!?!?
But lately, my thinking has changed: Like the characters in Godot, I think that we’re waiting in vain. The Lehman-like event will never arrive because it won’t be allowed to arrive. So this miserable slog we are going through will continue—indefinitely. (Yeah, I know: Sucks to be us.)




Guess Who’s Even More Leveraged Than the European Banks?




Is Larry Summers an Economic War Criminal?



On the (not so) Mega ReFi

Posted by: Bruce Krasting

Post date: 10/25/2011 - 08:31

Thoughts on the ReFI. 

Market Commentary From Monty Guild

October 24, 2011, at 4:21 pm
by Monty Guild 

Some New Recommendations

Over the past few weeks, we have been purchasing U.S., emerging market, energy, and agriculture related shares, and would like to recommend to our readers; Oil, Wheat, the Canadian Dollar and Singapore Dollar, emerging market equities, and U.S. equities.  We view these areas as an attractive trade between now and year end. We still recommend gold as a long term buy recommendation.

Our Current Recommendations

	Date	Date	Appreciation/Depreciation
Investment	Recommended	Closed	in U.S. Dollars
Commodity Market Recommendations
Gold	6/25/2002	Open	+403.4%
Oil	10/24/2011	NEW
Wheat	10/24/2011	NEW
Currency Recommendations
Canadian Dollar	10/24/2011	NEW
Singapore Dollar	10/24/2011	NEW
Equity Market Recommendations
i Shares MSCI Emerging Market Index	10/24/2011	NEW
U.S.	10/24/2011	NEW

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In The News Today

October 24, 2011, at 4:19 pm
by Jim Sinclair 

Jim Sinclair`s Commentary

Stratfor`s comment on total US troop withdrawal from Iraq:
"The U.S. has spent most of the year, both officially and unofficially, attempting to arrange some sort of an extension for as many as 20,000, and as few as a couple thousand, U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond the end of the year deadline for a complete withdrawal. What none of this would do is address the underlying issue of resurgent Iranian power, not just in Iraq, but the wider region, and this is something the U.S. has yet to come up with a meaningful response for. From a military perspective, the U.S. training presence’s advisory and assistance role, particularly in issues of maintenance, planning and logistics, will inherently leave the Iraqi military and Iraqi security forces less capable than they are now."

http://www.stratfor.com/




Jim Sinclair`s Commentary

Please be advised of this public announcement as this group is no lightweight, having proved themselves through consistent fundamental accuracy.

GEAB N°58 is available! Global systemic crisis – First half of 2012: Decimation of the Western banks - Public announcement GEAB N°58 (October 16, 2011) –
As anticipated by LEAP/E2020, the second half of 2011 is seeing the world continuing its unstoppable descent into global geopolitical dislocation characterized by the convergence of monetary, financial, economic, social, political and strategic crises. After 2010 and early 2011 which has seen the myth of a recovery and exit from the crisis shattered, it’s now uncertainty that dominates the States’ decision-making processes just like businesses and individuals, inevitably generating increasing apprehension for the future. The context singularly lends itself: social explosions, political paralysis and / or instability, return to the global recession, fear over banks, currency war, the disappearance of more than ten trillion USD in ghost-assets in three months, widespread lasting and rising unemployment…
Besides, it’s this very unhealthy financial environment that will cause the "decimation (1) of Western banks" in the first half of 2012: with their profitability in freefall, balance sheets in disarray, with the disappearance of trillions of USD assets, with states increasingly pushing for strict regulation of their activities (2), even placing them under public supervision and increasingly hostile public opinion, now the scaffold has been erected and at least 10% of Western banks (3) will have to pass that way in the coming quarters.
However, in this environment, increasingly chaotic in appearance, trends emerge, the outlook sometimes appears positive… and most importantly, the uncertainty is much less than one might think, if only one analyzes the changes in the world within the framework of the world after the crisis rather than with the criteria of the world before the crisis.
In this GEAB issue, our team also presents its 2012-2016 "country risk" forecast for 40 States, demonstrating that one can depict the situations and identify strong trends through the current "fog of war" (4). In such a context, this decision-making tool is proving very useful for the individual investor as well as the economic or political decision-maker. Our team also presents the changes in the GEAB $ Index and its recommendations (gold-currencies-real estate), including of course the means to protect oneself from the consequences of the coming "decimation of Western banks".
For this GEAB issue, our team has chosen to present an excerpt from the chapter on the decimation of Western banks in the first half of 2012.

More…

Ben Davies: Monkey business -- reality, illusion, or delusion

 

 

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