*¤ YESTERDAY IN GOLD & SILVER*
As I pointed out in The Wrap in yesterday's column, the prices of all four precious metals rallied a bit around 9 a.m. in Tokyo on their Tuesday Morning, and then gold got sold down below $1,300 spot a short time later. The price traded in a tight range between $1,290 and $1,295 spot right up until 11 a.m. in London, and then slowly got sold down again until shortly after the 1:30 p.m. close of Comex trading in New York. Gold traded flat from there for the rest of the Tuesday session.
The high of the day came shortly after 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, and the low was at 9:40 a.m. EDT in New York, which may, or may not, have been an early London p.m. gold fix. That low was recorded by Kitco as $1,278.20 spot.
Gold closed at $1,262.60 spot, down $21.20 on the day. Volume, net of August and September numbers, was 160,000 contracts.
The silver price was more "volatile", especially during the thinly-traded Far East session. The interim low came around 2:30 p.m. in Hong Kong trading, and then it rallied to its high of the day [around $19.80 spot] which occurred at 11 a.m. BST.
Silver's low tick, just like gold's, came around 9:40 a.m. in New York. Kitco recorded that as $19.40 spot. The silver price recovered from that sell-off rather quickly, but then slowly declined right into the 5:15 p.m. electronic close.
Silver finished the Tuesday session at $19.48 spot, which was very close to its low for the day. Net volume was a very quiet 26,000 contracts.
Here's the New York Spot Silver [Bid] chart on its own, so you can see the 9:45 a.m. EDT spike low more clearly.
Platinum and palladium weren't spared, either, and here are their charts...
The *dollar index* closed on Monday at 81.74, and when trading resumed in the Far East early on their Tuesday, the index rallied to its 81.95 high around 2:30 p.m. in Hong Kong. From there it headed lower, hitting its nadir of 81.53 shortly after 10:30 EDT in New York. It rallied a bit from there, but then sold off into the close. The index closed at 81.62, down 12 basis points. Nothing to see here, and it's obvious that the currency movements had zip to do with what was going on with the precious metals.
The gold stocks got crushed. The *HUI* gapped down at the open and never looked back, closing on its absolute low of the day, down 6.01%, it's seventh losing session in a row.
The silver shares were hit hard as well, and Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed down a chunky 5.68%.
(Click on image to enlarge)
As I've mentioned on numerous occasions, you have to wonder who is buying all these shares that people/institutions are forced to sell into such an illiquid market. I'm suspecting the JPMorgan et al are feasting on these, but it’s impossible to tell, and I'm just thinking out loud. But someone with deep pockets is buying everything that's falling off the table at these prices.
The CME's Daily Delivery Report was certainly interesting yesterday. It showed that 302 gold and 123 silver contracts were posted for delivery tomorrow within the Comex-approved depositories. In gold, the three short/issuers were Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia with 125 contracts out of its proprietary trading account, JPMorgan Chase with 140 contracts out of its client account, and bringing up the rear was ABN Amro with 37 contracts. The only long/stopper of note was JPMorgan Chase for its in-house [proprietary] trading account, with 286 contracts. No surprises there.
But in silver, JPMorgan Chase was the biggest short/issuer for a change, with 104 contracts out of its in-house [proprietary] trading account. The largest long/stopper was ABN Amro with 94 contracts, and in distant second place was Jefferies with 12 contracts. The link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
Looking at the CME's preliminary volume/open interest data for the Tuesday trading day, I see that gold's open interest in August is now down to 2,476 contracts, and silver's open interest in August actually increased by 117 contracts yesterday, so someone wants some real metal all of a sudden. I doubt very much that the changes reported in the Issuers and Stoppers Report from Tuesday [above] is included in these volume/open interest numbers, as those changes won't show up until delivery is done on Thursday.
Another day, another withdrawal form *GLD*, as an authorized participant removed 67,618 troy ounces, and as of 10:50 p.m. EDT, there were no reported changes in *SLV*.
The *U.S. Mint* had a small sales report yesterday, as they sold 1,500 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes, and that was all.
It was pretty quiet over at the *Comex-approved depositories* on Monday. There was no reported activity in *gold*, either in or out, and in *silver* 171,282 troy ounces were withdrawn. The link to the silver activity is here.
Well, the *China net gold imports through Hong Kong* numbers for the month of June were published yesterday, and the data showed that 104.6 tonnes were imported that month, and here's Nick's chart that shows all the details.
(Click on image to enlarge)
If my memory serves me correctly, this puts China's gold imports through Hong Kong at just north of 1,160 tonnes for the 2013 calendar year so far.
I only have slightly fewer stories today than I did yesterday and, once again, I'll leave the final edit in your hands.
*¤ CRITICAL READS*
-Goldman Sachs Is Throwing Cold Water On Michael Lewis' New Vanity Fair Expose Before It Even Comes Out-
Now we know what that tantalizing Michael Lewis "One Man's Goldman Sachs Nightmare" cover story in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair is about...
According to a Goldman source familiar with the situation, Lewis's story is about former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergei Alyenikov, who was tried, convicted, and then later acquitted of stealing trade secrets from Goldman.
Says our Goldman source: "This is a sexed-up headline for a very old story, one that has already received extensive ink from the financial and tabloid press. It's about a former GS techie, Sergei Alyenikov, who was prosecuted by the US Department of Justice for stealing proprietary technology from his employer and convicted by a jury in US federal court. When an appeals court reversed that conviction on a technicality, the US congress closed the loophole on a bipartisan vote, and President Obama then signed it into law."
"'Vanity Fair, which typically gives writers months to work on its longer articles, sent Goldman Sachs a series of detailed and one-sided questions about the Alyenikov case on a Saturday afternoon in July and asked for responses by Tuesday Morning."
This short commentary appeared on the businessinsider.comInternet site over a week ago...and today's first story is courtesy of Roy Stephens.
Read more...
-DoJ Sues BofA Over Mortgage-Backed Securities-
Bank of America was slapped with separate civil lawsuits Tuesday by the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which charges the bank with defrauding investors in connection with the sale of $850 million in mortgage-backed securities.
The Justice Department complaint alleges that Bank of America lied to investors about the risk attached to the mortgage loans the bank had packed into a large residential mortgage-backed security it was marketing in early 2008.
Bank of America, according to the complaint, “made false statements after intentionally not performing proper due diligence and filled the securitization with a disproportionate amount of risky mortgages originated through third party mortgage brokers.”
We can relax. They won't admit guilt, nobody will go to jail...and whatever fine there is will just be licensing fee, a cost of doing business which they can probably write off. This story was posted on the foxbusiness.com website yesterday...and is courtesy or reader M.A.
Read more...
-Wall Street's big SAC Capital problem-
The Wall Street firms that do business with SAC Capital are right to be privately worried about possible legal contamination from the criminal indictment against the hedge fund.
Publicly, Wall Street is standing behind SAC Capital. It's "business as usual," according to reports. Gary Cohn of Goldman Sachs recently praised SAC as "a great counter party" in an interview with my colleague Kate Kelly.
But behind the scenes, Wall Street executives are worried, according to people familiar with the matter. All the biggest Wall Street firms have extensive ties to SAC Capital—ties that could put them in legal jeopardy, particularly under much larger exposure spelled out in the Dodd-Frank banking reform regulations.
This rather interesting news item was posted on the CNBC website early yesterday morning...and my thanks go out to U.A.E. reader Laurent-Patrick Gally for sending it our way.
Read more...
-T.S.A. Expands Duties Beyond Airport Security-
As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds.
The squad was not with the Washington police department or Amtrak’s police force, but was one of the Transportation Security Administration’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squads — VIPR teams for short — assigned to perform random security sweeps to prevent terrorist attacks at transportation hUBS across the United States.
With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals. Not everyone is happy.
Not everyone is happy? I would think not. All the elements are [quickly?] falling into place for the final move into a police state in the U.S.A. If I were living in America at the moment, I would be packing my bags. This *must read* news item was posted on The New York Times website on Monday...and my thanks go out to reader M.A. for his second offering in today's column.
Read more...
-Pepe Escobar: Al-Qaeda to the rescue-
When the going gets tough, count on the Ministry of Truth to get going.
The end of Ramadan was imminent. The jihadi chattering classes of that fuzzy entity, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), went on overdrive. It was jailbreak galore from Libya to Pakistan via Iraq. And all this in perfect synch with two successive fatwas issued by that perennial bogeyman, former Osama bin Laden sidekick Ayman "Doctor Evil" al-Zawahiri.
Imagine a rushed crisis meeting at the highest levels of the Orwellian/Panopticon complex: "Gentlemen, we have a golden opportunity here. We are under siege by defector spy Edward Snowden - liberated by the Soviets - and that terrorist hack Greenwald. Snowden may be winning: even among US public opinion, there's a growing perception we may be more of a threat than al-Qaeda. So we must show we are vigilantly protecting our freedoms. Yes; we're gonna scream Terra, Terra, Terra!"
Instantly, we have the closing, with much fanfare, of plenty of US embassies and consulates in the "Muslim world" and a State Department "worldwide" travel alert - soon expanded by Interpol. Confusion ensues - with many trying to figure out whether backpacking in Thailand or eating fresh caviar in Baku is a surefire way of not being blown up.
Normally I save any writings by Pepe for weekend reading, but this rather short [for Pepe] commentary is so apropos that I though it worth inserting here. It's right on the money...and a *must read*. It was posted on the Asia Times website on Monday...and my thanks go out to Roy Stephens once more.
Read more...
-Embassies hard hit as HSBC dumps clients-
HSBC bank has told dozens of foreign missions in London that it will close their bank accounts, an official said Sunday, news that has sent diplomats across the capital scrambling to find a new place to put their money.
Bernard Silver, an former honorary consul who serves as president of the Consular Corps of London, said he was told by British officials that more than 40 different embassies, consulates, and high commissions were affected.
Silver declined to name any specific missions, but the Mail on Sunday newspaper said that the Papal Nunciature — the Vatican’s mission to London — was affected, as was the Papua New Guinea High Commission, and the honorary consul from Benin.
Attempts to reach the Vatican’s mission, Benin’s honorary consul, and Papua New Guinea’s high commissioner were not immediately successful, but the newspaper cited an official at the latter as expressing shock at the move.
This AP story from Monday was picked up The Boston Globe...and is *definitely worth reading*. I thank Bill Busser for passing it along yesterday.
Read more...
-IMF crosses swords with Germany over crisis handling-
The International Monetary Fund has exhorted Germany to stop dragging its feet on eurozone crisis measures, refuting claims that austerity is working and that Europe is on the road to recovery.
The IMF said Germany’s vast trade surplus must be slashed in half to rectify the eurozone’s North-South imbalances, and warned that fiscal overkill could abort recovery and set off an EMU-wide chain reaction.
“Fiscal over-performance should be firmly avoided,” said the Fund in its annual health check on the country.
“Should growth prospects sour and labour markets weaken, proactive fiscal policies would be needed. A large shock may necessitate invoking the escape clause under the debt brake rule in order to support domestic activity and employment,” it said, referring to a clause in the German constitution mandating a cut in the structural deficit to near balance by 2016.
I can hardly believe what I'm reading. The IMF is asking Germany to commit economic suicide for the benefit of the PIIGS. You can't make this stuff up! This *Ambrose Evans-Pritchard* offering was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site late yesterday afternoon BST...and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for her first contribution to today's column.
Read more...
-Italian government debt: Well oiled-
THE summer break is less relaxing for some than others. When a country has a total public debt of more than 2 trillion ($2.6 trillion) and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 130.3%, its debt managers always have the next auction to prepare. Italy has a 2013 funding requirement of about 450 billion; investors bought €34.6 billion of Italian government debt in July’s nine auctions. For the debt directorate, which is part of Italy’s Treasury department, every month and every auction is a test of their systems. Things have to go smoothly.
Its processes are designed to avoid surprises. An English-language website contains details of debt types, volumes and maturities; an annual calendar lists forthcoming auctions. There is continuity at the top. Unusually for Italy a woman, Maria Cannata, has been in charge of the directorate for 13 years. The lengthy relationships and frequent contacts that she and her staff have with 20 “specialist” banks that buy securities from the Treasury in the primary market matter most when markets are skittish.
Ms Cannata’s job has got a bit easier in the past year. The European Central Bank’s pledge to buy the debt of struggling governments has brought down funding costs. By the end of July Italy had covered 70% of its funding requirement for 2013. Foreigners now own less than 40% of Italian debt securities, compared with a figure of more than 50% four years ago, so the country is less exposed to flighty capital than before. But the sheer scale of Italy’s debt remains daunting: €328.2 billion of Italian debt falls due for redemption over the next twelve months and the country’s public-sector deficit creates a need for more borrowing. With concerns over Italian banks mounting, and the country’s political scene always capable of delivering shocks, Ms Cannata and her team have to stay watchful.
This very short news item was posted on the economist.comInternet site on Monday...and my thanks go out to Washington state reader S.A.
Read more...
-Four King World News Blogs/Audio Interviews-
1. *John Embry*: "We Have Never Seen Anything Like This in History". 2. *Michael Pento*: "Expect Economic Chaos and Financial Collapse". 3. *Robert Fitzwilson*: "The 'Shock' That Will Crush the Economy and a Lost Generation". 4. The audio interview is with*James Turk*.
Read more...
-Gold futures dropped in milliseconds before ISM report-
About 90 milliseconds before the 10 a.m. release of an upbeat Institute for Supply Management report about U.S. service-sector companies, the price of gold futures and gold ETFs fell.
Specifically, at 9:59:59 and 904 milliseconds, gold for December delivery /quotes/zigman/662680 GCZ3 -0.06% dropped almost $2 a contract, from $1308.90 to $1307.00. The ETF SPLD Gold Trust /quotes/zigman/41663 /quotes/nls/gld GLD experienced a similar drop.
The move came right before ISM released a report stating that U.S. service-sector companies expanded at a sharply faster pace in July. The ISM said its survey of purchasing managers – the executives who buy supplies for their companies – climbed to 56.0% last month from 52.2% in June. Gold ended $8 an ounce lower.
“Dollar-wise it was a pretty significant move,” said Eric Hunsader, director at Nanex, a provider of real-time data to traders. ISM did not return a call for comment.
This story was posted on the marketwatch.com Internet site early on Monday afternoon...and I found it buried in a GATA release. It's a short piece...and the chart alone is worth the trip.
Read more...
-Morgan Stanley: No Matter What, Wall Street's Controversial Warehousing Businesses Are Getting Hit-
Wall Street can cry if it wants, but its warehousing business is about to change, says a Morgan Stanley note out this morning.
They're talking about the business that has been making headlines for the past few weeks. The New York Times accused Goldman Sachs of costing Americans $5 billion a year by making their aluminum warehouse clients endure long wait times to receive deliveries of the metal.
The bank owns the Detroit-based Metro Metro International Trade Services, a warehouse company which is a part of the London Metals Exchange (LME) system. Goldman, for its part, defended the business in a Factsheet released last month. It's been a boon to the bank in a world of low interest rates and low demand for commodities.
The problem, says Morgan Stanley, aside from the discomfort of many clients, is that this has started to impact the price of aluminum.
This short story appeared on the businessinsider.com Reported by Proactive Investors 2 days ago.
As I pointed out in The Wrap in yesterday's column, the prices of all four precious metals rallied a bit around 9 a.m. in Tokyo on their Tuesday Morning, and then gold got sold down below $1,300 spot a short time later. The price traded in a tight range between $1,290 and $1,295 spot right up until 11 a.m. in London, and then slowly got sold down again until shortly after the 1:30 p.m. close of Comex trading in New York. Gold traded flat from there for the rest of the Tuesday session.
The high of the day came shortly after 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, and the low was at 9:40 a.m. EDT in New York, which may, or may not, have been an early London p.m. gold fix. That low was recorded by Kitco as $1,278.20 spot.
Gold closed at $1,262.60 spot, down $21.20 on the day. Volume, net of August and September numbers, was 160,000 contracts.
The silver price was more "volatile", especially during the thinly-traded Far East session. The interim low came around 2:30 p.m. in Hong Kong trading, and then it rallied to its high of the day [around $19.80 spot] which occurred at 11 a.m. BST.
Silver's low tick, just like gold's, came around 9:40 a.m. in New York. Kitco recorded that as $19.40 spot. The silver price recovered from that sell-off rather quickly, but then slowly declined right into the 5:15 p.m. electronic close.
Silver finished the Tuesday session at $19.48 spot, which was very close to its low for the day. Net volume was a very quiet 26,000 contracts.
Here's the New York Spot Silver [Bid] chart on its own, so you can see the 9:45 a.m. EDT spike low more clearly.
Platinum and palladium weren't spared, either, and here are their charts...
The *dollar index* closed on Monday at 81.74, and when trading resumed in the Far East early on their Tuesday, the index rallied to its 81.95 high around 2:30 p.m. in Hong Kong. From there it headed lower, hitting its nadir of 81.53 shortly after 10:30 EDT in New York. It rallied a bit from there, but then sold off into the close. The index closed at 81.62, down 12 basis points. Nothing to see here, and it's obvious that the currency movements had zip to do with what was going on with the precious metals.
The gold stocks got crushed. The *HUI* gapped down at the open and never looked back, closing on its absolute low of the day, down 6.01%, it's seventh losing session in a row.
The silver shares were hit hard as well, and Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed down a chunky 5.68%.
(Click on image to enlarge)
As I've mentioned on numerous occasions, you have to wonder who is buying all these shares that people/institutions are forced to sell into such an illiquid market. I'm suspecting the JPMorgan et al are feasting on these, but it’s impossible to tell, and I'm just thinking out loud. But someone with deep pockets is buying everything that's falling off the table at these prices.
The CME's Daily Delivery Report was certainly interesting yesterday. It showed that 302 gold and 123 silver contracts were posted for delivery tomorrow within the Comex-approved depositories. In gold, the three short/issuers were Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia with 125 contracts out of its proprietary trading account, JPMorgan Chase with 140 contracts out of its client account, and bringing up the rear was ABN Amro with 37 contracts. The only long/stopper of note was JPMorgan Chase for its in-house [proprietary] trading account, with 286 contracts. No surprises there.
But in silver, JPMorgan Chase was the biggest short/issuer for a change, with 104 contracts out of its in-house [proprietary] trading account. The largest long/stopper was ABN Amro with 94 contracts, and in distant second place was Jefferies with 12 contracts. The link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
Looking at the CME's preliminary volume/open interest data for the Tuesday trading day, I see that gold's open interest in August is now down to 2,476 contracts, and silver's open interest in August actually increased by 117 contracts yesterday, so someone wants some real metal all of a sudden. I doubt very much that the changes reported in the Issuers and Stoppers Report from Tuesday [above] is included in these volume/open interest numbers, as those changes won't show up until delivery is done on Thursday.
Another day, another withdrawal form *GLD*, as an authorized participant removed 67,618 troy ounces, and as of 10:50 p.m. EDT, there were no reported changes in *SLV*.
The *U.S. Mint* had a small sales report yesterday, as they sold 1,500 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes, and that was all.
It was pretty quiet over at the *Comex-approved depositories* on Monday. There was no reported activity in *gold*, either in or out, and in *silver* 171,282 troy ounces were withdrawn. The link to the silver activity is here.
Well, the *China net gold imports through Hong Kong* numbers for the month of June were published yesterday, and the data showed that 104.6 tonnes were imported that month, and here's Nick's chart that shows all the details.
(Click on image to enlarge)
If my memory serves me correctly, this puts China's gold imports through Hong Kong at just north of 1,160 tonnes for the 2013 calendar year so far.
I only have slightly fewer stories today than I did yesterday and, once again, I'll leave the final edit in your hands.
*¤ CRITICAL READS*
-Goldman Sachs Is Throwing Cold Water On Michael Lewis' New Vanity Fair Expose Before It Even Comes Out-
Now we know what that tantalizing Michael Lewis "One Man's Goldman Sachs Nightmare" cover story in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair is about...
According to a Goldman source familiar with the situation, Lewis's story is about former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergei Alyenikov, who was tried, convicted, and then later acquitted of stealing trade secrets from Goldman.
Says our Goldman source: "This is a sexed-up headline for a very old story, one that has already received extensive ink from the financial and tabloid press. It's about a former GS techie, Sergei Alyenikov, who was prosecuted by the US Department of Justice for stealing proprietary technology from his employer and convicted by a jury in US federal court. When an appeals court reversed that conviction on a technicality, the US congress closed the loophole on a bipartisan vote, and President Obama then signed it into law."
"'Vanity Fair, which typically gives writers months to work on its longer articles, sent Goldman Sachs a series of detailed and one-sided questions about the Alyenikov case on a Saturday afternoon in July and asked for responses by Tuesday Morning."
This short commentary appeared on the businessinsider.comInternet site over a week ago...and today's first story is courtesy of Roy Stephens.
Read more...
-DoJ Sues BofA Over Mortgage-Backed Securities-
Bank of America was slapped with separate civil lawsuits Tuesday by the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which charges the bank with defrauding investors in connection with the sale of $850 million in mortgage-backed securities.
The Justice Department complaint alleges that Bank of America lied to investors about the risk attached to the mortgage loans the bank had packed into a large residential mortgage-backed security it was marketing in early 2008.
Bank of America, according to the complaint, “made false statements after intentionally not performing proper due diligence and filled the securitization with a disproportionate amount of risky mortgages originated through third party mortgage brokers.”
We can relax. They won't admit guilt, nobody will go to jail...and whatever fine there is will just be licensing fee, a cost of doing business which they can probably write off. This story was posted on the foxbusiness.com website yesterday...and is courtesy or reader M.A.
Read more...
-Wall Street's big SAC Capital problem-
The Wall Street firms that do business with SAC Capital are right to be privately worried about possible legal contamination from the criminal indictment against the hedge fund.
Publicly, Wall Street is standing behind SAC Capital. It's "business as usual," according to reports. Gary Cohn of Goldman Sachs recently praised SAC as "a great counter party" in an interview with my colleague Kate Kelly.
But behind the scenes, Wall Street executives are worried, according to people familiar with the matter. All the biggest Wall Street firms have extensive ties to SAC Capital—ties that could put them in legal jeopardy, particularly under much larger exposure spelled out in the Dodd-Frank banking reform regulations.
This rather interesting news item was posted on the CNBC website early yesterday morning...and my thanks go out to U.A.E. reader Laurent-Patrick Gally for sending it our way.
Read more...
-T.S.A. Expands Duties Beyond Airport Security-
As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds.
The squad was not with the Washington police department or Amtrak’s police force, but was one of the Transportation Security Administration’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squads — VIPR teams for short — assigned to perform random security sweeps to prevent terrorist attacks at transportation hUBS across the United States.
With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals. Not everyone is happy.
Not everyone is happy? I would think not. All the elements are [quickly?] falling into place for the final move into a police state in the U.S.A. If I were living in America at the moment, I would be packing my bags. This *must read* news item was posted on The New York Times website on Monday...and my thanks go out to reader M.A. for his second offering in today's column.
Read more...
-Pepe Escobar: Al-Qaeda to the rescue-
When the going gets tough, count on the Ministry of Truth to get going.
The end of Ramadan was imminent. The jihadi chattering classes of that fuzzy entity, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), went on overdrive. It was jailbreak galore from Libya to Pakistan via Iraq. And all this in perfect synch with two successive fatwas issued by that perennial bogeyman, former Osama bin Laden sidekick Ayman "Doctor Evil" al-Zawahiri.
Imagine a rushed crisis meeting at the highest levels of the Orwellian/Panopticon complex: "Gentlemen, we have a golden opportunity here. We are under siege by defector spy Edward Snowden - liberated by the Soviets - and that terrorist hack Greenwald. Snowden may be winning: even among US public opinion, there's a growing perception we may be more of a threat than al-Qaeda. So we must show we are vigilantly protecting our freedoms. Yes; we're gonna scream Terra, Terra, Terra!"
Instantly, we have the closing, with much fanfare, of plenty of US embassies and consulates in the "Muslim world" and a State Department "worldwide" travel alert - soon expanded by Interpol. Confusion ensues - with many trying to figure out whether backpacking in Thailand or eating fresh caviar in Baku is a surefire way of not being blown up.
Normally I save any writings by Pepe for weekend reading, but this rather short [for Pepe] commentary is so apropos that I though it worth inserting here. It's right on the money...and a *must read*. It was posted on the Asia Times website on Monday...and my thanks go out to Roy Stephens once more.
Read more...
-Embassies hard hit as HSBC dumps clients-
HSBC bank has told dozens of foreign missions in London that it will close their bank accounts, an official said Sunday, news that has sent diplomats across the capital scrambling to find a new place to put their money.
Bernard Silver, an former honorary consul who serves as president of the Consular Corps of London, said he was told by British officials that more than 40 different embassies, consulates, and high commissions were affected.
Silver declined to name any specific missions, but the Mail on Sunday newspaper said that the Papal Nunciature — the Vatican’s mission to London — was affected, as was the Papua New Guinea High Commission, and the honorary consul from Benin.
Attempts to reach the Vatican’s mission, Benin’s honorary consul, and Papua New Guinea’s high commissioner were not immediately successful, but the newspaper cited an official at the latter as expressing shock at the move.
This AP story from Monday was picked up The Boston Globe...and is *definitely worth reading*. I thank Bill Busser for passing it along yesterday.
Read more...
-IMF crosses swords with Germany over crisis handling-
The International Monetary Fund has exhorted Germany to stop dragging its feet on eurozone crisis measures, refuting claims that austerity is working and that Europe is on the road to recovery.
The IMF said Germany’s vast trade surplus must be slashed in half to rectify the eurozone’s North-South imbalances, and warned that fiscal overkill could abort recovery and set off an EMU-wide chain reaction.
“Fiscal over-performance should be firmly avoided,” said the Fund in its annual health check on the country.
“Should growth prospects sour and labour markets weaken, proactive fiscal policies would be needed. A large shock may necessitate invoking the escape clause under the debt brake rule in order to support domestic activity and employment,” it said, referring to a clause in the German constitution mandating a cut in the structural deficit to near balance by 2016.
I can hardly believe what I'm reading. The IMF is asking Germany to commit economic suicide for the benefit of the PIIGS. You can't make this stuff up! This *Ambrose Evans-Pritchard* offering was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site late yesterday afternoon BST...and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for her first contribution to today's column.
Read more...
-Italian government debt: Well oiled-
THE summer break is less relaxing for some than others. When a country has a total public debt of more than 2 trillion ($2.6 trillion) and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 130.3%, its debt managers always have the next auction to prepare. Italy has a 2013 funding requirement of about 450 billion; investors bought €34.6 billion of Italian government debt in July’s nine auctions. For the debt directorate, which is part of Italy’s Treasury department, every month and every auction is a test of their systems. Things have to go smoothly.
Its processes are designed to avoid surprises. An English-language website contains details of debt types, volumes and maturities; an annual calendar lists forthcoming auctions. There is continuity at the top. Unusually for Italy a woman, Maria Cannata, has been in charge of the directorate for 13 years. The lengthy relationships and frequent contacts that she and her staff have with 20 “specialist” banks that buy securities from the Treasury in the primary market matter most when markets are skittish.
Ms Cannata’s job has got a bit easier in the past year. The European Central Bank’s pledge to buy the debt of struggling governments has brought down funding costs. By the end of July Italy had covered 70% of its funding requirement for 2013. Foreigners now own less than 40% of Italian debt securities, compared with a figure of more than 50% four years ago, so the country is less exposed to flighty capital than before. But the sheer scale of Italy’s debt remains daunting: €328.2 billion of Italian debt falls due for redemption over the next twelve months and the country’s public-sector deficit creates a need for more borrowing. With concerns over Italian banks mounting, and the country’s political scene always capable of delivering shocks, Ms Cannata and her team have to stay watchful.
This very short news item was posted on the economist.comInternet site on Monday...and my thanks go out to Washington state reader S.A.
Read more...
-Four King World News Blogs/Audio Interviews-
1. *John Embry*: "We Have Never Seen Anything Like This in History". 2. *Michael Pento*: "Expect Economic Chaos and Financial Collapse". 3. *Robert Fitzwilson*: "The 'Shock' That Will Crush the Economy and a Lost Generation". 4. The audio interview is with*James Turk*.
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-Gold futures dropped in milliseconds before ISM report-
About 90 milliseconds before the 10 a.m. release of an upbeat Institute for Supply Management report about U.S. service-sector companies, the price of gold futures and gold ETFs fell.
Specifically, at 9:59:59 and 904 milliseconds, gold for December delivery /quotes/zigman/662680 GCZ3 -0.06% dropped almost $2 a contract, from $1308.90 to $1307.00. The ETF SPLD Gold Trust /quotes/zigman/41663 /quotes/nls/gld GLD experienced a similar drop.
The move came right before ISM released a report stating that U.S. service-sector companies expanded at a sharply faster pace in July. The ISM said its survey of purchasing managers – the executives who buy supplies for their companies – climbed to 56.0% last month from 52.2% in June. Gold ended $8 an ounce lower.
“Dollar-wise it was a pretty significant move,” said Eric Hunsader, director at Nanex, a provider of real-time data to traders. ISM did not return a call for comment.
This story was posted on the marketwatch.com Internet site early on Monday afternoon...and I found it buried in a GATA release. It's a short piece...and the chart alone is worth the trip.
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-Morgan Stanley: No Matter What, Wall Street's Controversial Warehousing Businesses Are Getting Hit-
Wall Street can cry if it wants, but its warehousing business is about to change, says a Morgan Stanley note out this morning.
They're talking about the business that has been making headlines for the past few weeks. The New York Times accused Goldman Sachs of costing Americans $5 billion a year by making their aluminum warehouse clients endure long wait times to receive deliveries of the metal.
The bank owns the Detroit-based Metro Metro International Trade Services, a warehouse company which is a part of the London Metals Exchange (LME) system. Goldman, for its part, defended the business in a Factsheet released last month. It's been a boon to the bank in a world of low interest rates and low demand for commodities.
The problem, says Morgan Stanley, aside from the discomfort of many clients, is that this has started to impact the price of aluminum.
This short story appeared on the businessinsider.com Reported by Proactive Investors 2 days ago.