Gold Plunges $70 in an Hour, Silver Down 8% on U.S. QE Dampening Talk

Precious metals dived Wednesday afternoon – the crash being attributed to a statement by Ben Bernanke which appeared to imply that further Quantitative Easing was unlikely to be needed in the U.S.
by Lawrence Williams, MineWeb.com:
LONDON – What a difference an hour makes in the price of gold. One minute it was riding high fringing on hitting $1790 and within about an hour it had fallen around 4% to below the $1720s. Panic set in in the markets as stop loss selling and end-month profit taking added to the price crash. As befits its more volatile status, silver crashed back too and at the time of writing had come back around 8% at one time. Interestingly platinum, although it fell too, did not come back to the same extent sharply closing the gap between it and the gold price and coming to within $35 of the gold price.
A Statement to a U.S. Congressional Committee by U.S. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke seems to have taken the wind out of precious metals price sails with huge plunges seen across the board. Bernanke’s comments were seen as implying that more Quantitative easing was unlikely – and that rising oil prices could see a build-up in inflation raising the spectre that perhaps the earlier indications that interest rates would be kept at effectively zero levels for the next couple of years might no longer prove to be the case.
Read More @ MineWeb.com

Today’s Window Dressing Fall In Gold

by Jim Sinclair, JSMineset.com:

My Dear Friends,
Please do not be bothered by today’s intervention. The following news is what creates the absolute need for QE.
It is the thesis of my Formula of 2006 of no major recovery that gives the foundation to my thesis of QE to Infinity.

Treasury Yield Descending Signals Slowdown
by John Detrixhe and Daniel Kruger – Feb 29, 2012 8:55 AM MT

The $10 trillion market for US Treasuries is signaling that the economic recovery may be poised to weaken even as consumer confidence rises toward pre-recession levels.

Read More @ JSMineset.com

Obama Issues ‘Policy Directive’ Exempting American Citizens From Indefinite Detention

Skeptics fear future administration could still incarcerate US citizens under NDAA
by Paul Joseph Watson, InfoWars.com:

Despite the fact that it was his administration that specifically demanded the controversial ‘indefinite detention’ provisions of the NDAA be applied to Americans, President Obama has issued a ‘Presidential Policy Directive’ that forbids the law from being used against US citizens.

A “fact sheet” released by the White House last night contains details of a “Presidential Policy Directive” which explains that the administration will not seek to use the so-called ‘kidnapping provision’ of the National Defense Authorization Act to incarcerate American citizens without trial.

“Section 1022 does not apply to U.S. citizens, and the President has decided to waive its application to lawful permanent residents arrested in the United States,” states the White House fact sheet (PDF).

Read More @ InfoWars.com

Obama Is Going To Win

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 7 minutes ago

I would tell you that Obama is going to win. I don't want him to win. It's not good for America. But Larry, it's hard to defeat a sitting president and he's spending a lot of money. Things will feel good this year just because he's throwing money into the market and into the economy. - *in CNBC * *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.* more »

 

 

Bernanke tries talking down Commodities

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

Today was Fed Chairman Bernanke's chance to testisfy before the Congress' Financial Services Committee. Here is a quick synopsis of his comments as I see them. "The economy is getting better based on what we can see of the employment numbers but it is not growing at a fast enough clip to justify any immediate change in our accomodative monetary policy. The uptick in hiring has been helped by this policy and any change to it at the present time is not warranted. Real Estate is still a concern. Us fiscal condition is dire and faces a serious challenge at the end of this year. Inflatio... more » 




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Bots and EE Simultaneously Attack

Turd Ferguson at Along The Watchtower - 1 hour ago

First of all, I greatly apologize for the site being down yet again. I enrolled yesterday in the site "Alexa" with surveys the site and measures the traffic. Perhaps the overload of traffic that is crashing the site is due to an initial Alexa survey? Maybe. Of course, when the crash of the site coincides perfectly with a crash in gold and silver, it sure makes me wonder. The reason given for the smash of gold and silver is the testimony of The Bernank. Hmmmm. Of course, stocks aren't down very much. Hmmmm. Look, Santa has warned us repeatedly that there is extreme volatility coming.... more » 

 

Ron Paul To Ben Bernanke: "People Lose Trust In The Government Because You Lie To Them About Inflation"

Anytime Ron Paul sits across from Ben Bernanke you know sparks will fly. Sure enough, they did: starting 50 seconds into the clip below, Ron Paul, guns blazing, asks the Chairman if he does his own shopping, if he is aware of what true inflation is, and if he knows that Americans don't trust the government because they are being lied to about inflation. And it only gets better, once Paul starts brandishing a silver coin. The punchline: "The Fed will self-destruct anyway when the money is gone" - amen. And ironically letting the Fed keep on doing what it is doing will achieve that in the fastest possible way. In fact, letting the system cannibalize itself with no further hindrances may be the best option currently available - just go to town

Ron Paul Assaults Ben Bernanke On Parallel Currencies

 

Ron Paul: Restore the American Republic

U.S. Conducting Criminal Libor Probe

by Carrick Mollenkamp, Reuters:
(Reuters) – The Justice Department is conducting a criminal probe into whether the world’s biggest banks manipulated a global benchmark rate that is at the heart of a wide range of loans and derivatives, from trillions of dollars of mortgages and bonds to interest rate swaps, a person familiar with the matter said.
While the Justice Department’s inquiry into the setting of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, was known, the criminal aspect of the probe was not.
A criminal inquiry underscores the serious nature of a worldwide investigation that includes regulators and law-enforcement agencies in the United States, Japan, Canada and the UK.
Read More @ Reuters.com

Greek Bank Deposit Outflows Soar In January, Third Largest Ever

Just like the housing market in the US, following the modest blip higher in December Greek bank deposits, immediately the great unwashed took to calling an end of the Greek deposit outflow and seeing a glorious renaissance for the country's bank industry. Well look again. According to just released data from the Bank of Greece, January saw Greeks doing what they do best (in addition to striking of course): pulling their money from local banks, after a near record €5.3 billion, or the third highest on record, was withdrawn from the local banking system. As a result, total bank cash has now dropped to just €169 billion, down from €174 billion in December, and the lowest since 2006. This is an 18% decline from a year ago, or €37 billion less than the €206 billion last January, and is a whopping 30% lower than the all time deposit highs from 2007, as nearly €70 billion in cash has quietly either left the country or been parked deep in the local mattress bank.

A Strange Chart, In More Ways Than One

Everyone and their mum knows by now that Italian bonds have rallied since the first LTRO and we are told that this is symptomatic of 'improvement'. While we hate to steal the jam from that doughnut, we note Peter Tchir's interesting chart showing how focused the strength is in the short-end of the bond curve (which we know is thanks to the ECB's SMP program preference and the LTRO skew) but more notably the significantly less ebullient performance of the less manipulated and more fast-money, mark-to-market reality CDS market as we suspect, like him, the CDS is pricing in the longer-term subordination and termed out insolvency risk much more clearly than the illiquid bond market does, and perhaps bears closer scrutiny for a sense of what real risk sentiment really looks like.

Europe Closes On Lows As Stigma Trade Ramps Up

As we have discussed extensively, and noted this morning specifically, the LTRO is stigmatizing credit markets in Europe, no matter what European leaders or bank CEOs tell you. European credit and equity markets dropped dramatically post LTRO 2 and accelerated on Bernanke's lack of monetary exuberance. Financials underperformed but most notably, subordinated credit spreads widened significantly more than seniors holding at yesterday's wide levels. The Stigma trade is occurring in single-name credit also with the spread between LTRO and non-LTRO banks widening once again after compressing for a few days but it is the Senior-Sub spread decompression that is the liquid trade for European bank's implicit subordination for now (as the entire capital structure of LTRO banks just became subordinated at best and more levered and subordinated at worst). The EUR tumbled over 100pips towards 1.3350 as the USD rallied back to the week's highs. Silver (and Gold) crashed into the European close (down over 7% on the day at one point) while Treasuries sold off and European sovereigns leaked wider (except Portugal which crashed and Italy which compressed modestly). Quite a day.

Gold, Silver Plunge As Fears Monetary Punchbowl Is Taken Away Spread

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/29/2012 - 10:53 It seems the initial drop was merely the appetizer as Gold and Silver are now down considerably...

Goldman's Take On Bernanke: "No Clear Easing Signal"

Pouring more gasoline on the fire (or, actually, quite the opposite), here is Goldman's Hatzius who confirms that anyone who wants their QuuEee3ee, will just have to wait.

Ben Pulls The Punch Bowl - Market Unhappy

The slightly delayed reaction to Bernanke's semi-annual report to Congress is now rather impressive as clearly the market is saying 'QE3-off' for now, in line with our expectation from earlier when commenting on the GDP number we said that "As for the reason why the market is less than delighted with this "beat" is that with EUR Brent at record highs, courtesy of everyone else but primarily the ECB doing the equivalent of QE 3 in 2011's biggest deception play, it firmly take the Fed's punchbowl away at least for 3 months. More at 10 am when Bernanke testifies." 10 came and went, and the heroin addict known as the stock market was less than delighted that the only drug promised by Ben is the ZIRP methadone which does absolutely nothing for incremental liquidity. The question then is - without more QEesing, where will the next trillion in liquidity come from?

Chicago PMI Soars To 64, Beats Estimate Of 61, Employment Index Highest Since 1984

Earlier today, when forecasting the Chicago PMI, we warned to "expect another massive beat courtesy of consumers confident that they can have Apple apps, if not so much food, since they still don't pay their mortgages." Sure enough, the economic data is now straight out of China, with the Chicago PMI not only trouncing expectations, printing at 64, on consensus of 61 (the highest since last April when the peak of the liquidity bubble popped and the stock market rolled over), but, wait for it, the Employment index came at 64.2, up from 54.7, which was the highest employment print since April 1984! At this point it is no longer worth commenting on economic data, as between this, the NAR, the consumer confidence, it was all become farce of a blur. we now expect February unemployment to print negative as the labor participation rate slides to 50%, and seasonal adjustments and birth/date fixtures account for 5 million "additions" to jobs. One thing that is sure. There will be no more easing for a looooooooong time. Kiss any hope of more trillions in central bank liquidity goodbye.




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