Mike Krieger On When Central Banking Dies: China and Oil

Besides gold and silver, there is nothing that scares Central Planners (Bankers) more that oil.  In their delusional world where they play god with our futures, they think they can make the sheeple do whatever they want by adjusting the settings on a printing press and can thus determine the fate of the global economy and humanity itself.  What they hate more than anything else is when all of their money printing causes things like oil to rise because it exposes them for the charlatans that they are.  This is why Obama is constantly attacking speculators and oil companies.  It is all an attempt to scapegoat someone else for the financial nightmare that is hitting everyone’s wallet.  This is why they floated the absurd idea of releasing more oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and then denied it once the market failed to react vigorously enough to the rumor.  This is also why Obama surely has called the Saudis up repeatedly as of later to remind them that they might see regime change unless they ramp up oil production to help his reelection.   This brings us to one of the most important aspects of the entire global economy at the moment.  Saudi oil production is hitting record highs at the moment.  In fact if you look at the chart below you will see that the Saudis have never consistently pumped more oil than they are right now.  

Europe a bad day all around/Spanish yields rise/Portugal downgraded/Mark Grant on Spain

Harvey Organ at Harvey Organ's - The Daily Gold and Silver Report - 31 minutes ago

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen: We had a wild day on the gold/silver front as the bankers pushed our precious metals down prior to first day notice.  This has been their modus operandi now for the past year.  It seems that many now realize that our markets are manipulated every minute of the day. The price of gold fell today down $2.90 to $1655.00 even though the bankers whacked this metal more »

 

 

Clear and Present Danger: Why We Must Break Up the Too Big To Fail Banks Now

more »

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Silver Refused to be Used

more »

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Another Light Volume Wash and Rinse - Quarter's End

more »

 

Tick Tock

Dave in Denver at The Golden Truth - 5 hours ago

*Central banks in the emerging markets increasing their holdings of gold has been a big part of the bull market in the metal. At the end of last year, official net purchases of gold started to rise dramatically. In the third quarter of 2011, central banks added 148.8 tonnes to their gold stocks, more than double the entire amount of government buying in 2010, according to the World Gold Council. Interestingly, the Greek central bank has been slowly adding to its holdings of gold, which would be sort of handy, should they happen to decide to re-introduce the drachmas one day * Th... more » 

 

 

 

Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation

more »

 

Gold From Weak To Strong Hands

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 5 hours ago

I've updated this morning's chart with today's data. Watch those lease spreads contract as price declines and experts pan gold as speculative investment (see video). The shift of control from weak to strong hands is too easy. Chart: Real Gold Lease Rates (1-Month LIBOR less 1-Month GOFO) and Gold Price, USD Video: Will China Growth Fears Continue to Kill Commodities? ... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] 

One Government's Meat Is Any Other Man's Felony Poison

Ever feel like standing in Benny and the Centrally Planned Inkjets' shoes while in the comfort of your own home? Don't. As the following table demonstrates, doing what the US government does on a daily basis is likely to get one incarcerated, prosecuted, exiled, guillotined, bound and quartered, and most likely scapegoated by a member of the administration.
 

The Bernank's Lecture IV Decrypted: Inflation 20, Stability 17, Progress 1

The lecture series is complete and Ben can creep back behind the green curtain once again. Today's lecture focused on the aftermath of the crisis and a quick summary of just where Bernanke believes the recovery lies - Fed 95: Government 11. Unfortunately the word 'Progress' only appears once. When we asked Wordle to consider the speech, it gave us back what appeared to be a deus-ex-machina created tear-drop shape - somewhat ironic perhaps. Interestingly the words 'Credit Backs Just Markets' were at the very top of the pyramid and that led to the 'Financial Economy' making it clear just what is going on here. In an echo back to the last lecture on the crisis itself, there is some subliminal messaging with the phrase 'Mortgage Regulators Housing Crisis' appearing spookily close together. Rest assured though, Ben is not entirely self-aggrandizing as he used the word 'tool' a magnificent 30 times. Full presentation embedded in all its glory.

The Reason For The RIMM Bounce

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/29/2012 - 17:27 Short Interest Simply said: the results were not bad enough. And with 60 million shares short, or almost a doubling in the short interest in a few months, absolutely everyone is bearish, and one may just see a SHLD type squeeze in the stock if and as a covering panic picks up.

RIMM Earnings Out

And the numbers are out:

• RESEARCH IN MOTION 4Q REV. $4.19B, EST. $4.51B
• RESEARCH IN MOTION 4Q ADJ. EPS 80C, EST. 81C

No more guidance:

• RIMM WONT' GIVE QUANTIVE VIEWS DUE TO LONG TERM FOCUS

But here is what the market will focus on:

• RESEARCH IN MOTION REVIEWING STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITIES

 

SSDD - 2 Charts Summarizing Today's Melt Up

UPDATE: FX followed the same path of USD selling post EUR close but Treasuries did not and rallied to their best levels of the week.
In case you overslept yesterday and missed the U-turn shenanigans, today was almost perfectly the same. Equity, credit, and volatility markets all weakened notably into the open, kept sliding aggressively into the European close and then equities and vol (and not credit) turned on a dime and accelerated all the way back. The other similarity was the high volume dump, low volume pump and then considerably high average trade size around 1400 (in ES) into the close.

So It Is A Sweatshop After All

One would think workers commit suicide out of enjoyment at their labor conditions. One would be wrong. From Bloomberg:
FOXCONN AUDITOR FINDS ‘SERIOUS’ VIOLATIONS OF CHINA LABOR LAWS
FOXCONN AUDITOR FINDS CASES OF EMPLOYEES WORKING TOO MANY HOURS
FOXCONN PLEDGES TO CUT WORKING HOURS, GIVE EMPLOYEES OVERSIGHT
So China does have labor laws... In other news, more margin contraction for companies reliant on Foxconn slave labor... pardon... delightful work conditions.

Which Is The True Jobless Rate Correlation? Charting The Schrödinger Unemployment Rate

In an essay by Pimco's Tony Crescenzi, using the old and worn out title "To QE or Not to QE", which asks just that question, one of the lines of analysis focuses on the traditional conventional wisdom relationship between the jobless rate and initial claims for unemployment insurance. Tony says that this correlation leads him to believe that the unemployment rate is lower than where it official stands because, "Progress has been made, for example, on the employment front, with the six-month moving average for private payroll gains increasing to 214,000 per month in the six months ended in February 2012 from 160,000 per month in the 12 months prior. Importantly, weekly filings for initial jobless claims have fallen to a four-year low, fully 100k below year-ago levels and in territory consistent with a further decline in the unemployment rate (see Figure 1)." So far so good, and indeed if one very simplistically tracks merely the unemployment rate to jobless claims, the picture does indeed seem rosier than it currently is. The problem however, is that as always happens in this case, initial claims reflect only a discrete component of the true unemployment situation in the New Normal, which more than anything is characterized by one specific feature: the avalanche like implosion of the labor force, and the departure of millions of people, almost monthly from the labor pool, noted so very often on these pages, and recently forcing even Goldman and JP Morgan to ask whether Okun's law is not in fact broken precisely because of this. As such there is one other correlation that in our humble opinion should be tracked far more closely when trying to anticipate the unemployment rate: that of the unemployment rate but not just to initial claims, but rather to initial and continuing claims, as well as extended benefits and EUCs, which provide a far better picture of those who are truly falling out of the labor pool. And as the chart below shows, when using that far more accurate New Normal correlation, the picture is decided worse. In fact, instead of a sub-7% implied unemployment rate, the true implied unemployment rate is just over 12.5. 

Brevan Howard's Three Uncertainties And One Certainty To Worry About In The US

We discussed earlier about the Fed's ZIRP policy and the transmission mechanism through which its free-money ends up in the real-economy (or not as the case in point). Brevan Howard agrees that the outlook for the US is not plain-sailing and that US growth does indeed face cross-currents, with the labor market improving at a steady pace while aggregate demand slows. While the firm remains more stoic, seeing a generally favorable macro backdrop, they note three uncertainties and one certainty that keeps them up at night. The pace of the drop in unemployment against only trend growth leaves its sustainability uncertain; the potentially temporary easing of the European financial crisis seems increasingly uncertain; and the growing tensions in the Middle East and the uncertainty over gas prices derailing the fragile economy. However, it is the one certainty that worries us most (and them, it seems), and that is the enormous fiscal drag the US faces in 2013 which unchecked could reduce real GDP growth by more than 3 percentage points. Even if the President and the new Congress cut this by half it would still be a noticeable drag on growth.

Guest Post: Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 4: "Consumer Protection" Just Another Federal Reserve Power Grab

This is truly Orwellian: the latest and greatest Executive Branch/Federal Reserve power grab is labeled "consumer protection." I am indebted to correspondent Jim S. who seems to be one of the few Americans to have actually sorted through this monstronsity and gleaned its true nature: an unprecedented extension of Executive (i.e. Imperial Presidency) and Federal Reserve power. Let's start by recalling that the Federal Reserve is a consortium of private banks. Calling a private consortium of banks the "Federal Reserve" is the original Orwellian misdirection, for there is nothing "Federal" about the Federal Reserve. It is not a government agency. Now guess who will fund and control this vast new bureaucracy of "consumer protection"? Yes, the private consortium known as the Federal Reserve. "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will be an independent unit located inside and funded by the United States Federal Reserve. It will write and enforce bank rules, conduct bank examinations, monitor and report on markets, as well as collect and track consumer complaints." Since managing the money supply and interest rates is the ultimate "consumer protection," we can ask how well the Fed managed those tasks in the past 15 years: alas, their management has been catastrophic for the nation and the middle class, which has been gutted by their policies of serial bubble blowing, leveraged speculation and bank predation.

Mega Millions Lottery Pattern Generator "Hot Tip"

 

Is AAPL's 29-Year Trend-Line Signalling A Correction?

Presented with little comment except to note the incredible 29 year-long projection of the mid-80s trend-line (on the log-scale chart of AAPL share price) perhaps offers some resistance and the corrective 'echoes' that have occurred at these inflections before.

$29 Billion 7 Year Bond Sold In Uneventful Auction, Indirects Take Most Since August

Unlike yesterday's 5 year bond auction, which priced at the lowest Bid To Cover since August, there were no major surprises during the just concluded issuance of $29 billion in 7 Year bonds. The closing high yield was 1.59%, just as the When Issued predicted, which is the highest rate since October. The internals were more or less inline - Indirect takedown of 42.79% was the highest since August's 51.72%, Directs decline modestly from February's soaring 19.27%, to just 13.40%, which still was quite a bit higher than the TTM average 12.23%. Dealers were left with 43.81% of the auction, about 3% below their average. And while the market was sensing a weak auction ahead of the pricing, the subsequent favorable response in the Treasury complex has sent the entire curve tighter again, and money flowing out of stocks, which had hit an intraday high just before the auction completion. In other news, total US debt is now over $15.6 trillion.

Our sponsors were chosen to help you prepare for the coming global financial collapse...If you wait until TSHTF (the shi! hits the fan) it will be too late...  

 

Please consider making a small donation, to help cover some of the labor and costs to run this blog.

Thank You

 

I'm PayPal Verified