Finansiella Insikter

King World News har intervjuat James Turk som tycker sig se att guld och silver har nått en viktig bottennivå och pekar bl a på den ovanliga situationen på oljemarknaden där Brent handlas över WTI, den negativa inställningen till guld och COT rapporten (som visar på rekordlåga långa positioner bland sk ‘managed money’) som viktiga orsaker.

Nedan är intervjun med Turk i sin helhet:

James Turk – Gold & Silver Have Reached an Important Bottom

With volatility continuing in gold and silver, today King World News interviewed James Turk out of Spain.  When asked about the action in precious metals Turk responded, “Through Friday’s close on the LBMA, silver remained in backwardation, even by the numbers reported on the LBMA’s site.  The strong bounce on Friday after the option expiration combined with the backwardation is clear evidence that silver doesn’t want to stay down here in this area and is ready to move higher.”

“If we get silver above $28.70, that will reverse the trend followers from short to long.  The number on gold is $1,378.  This is what is going to take gold and silver to new highs.  You will see open interest expanding as people who were shaken out come in and put on long positions.

You have to keep in mind Eric that this little shakeout over the last couple of weeks has done nothing to change the very bullish fundamental factors that have been driving gold and silver higher.  Most significantly the CRB CCI (Continuous Commodity Index) is at record highs.  There is simply too much money being printed around the world and this monetary debasement is behind the ongoing bull market in gold and silver.

There is a relationship between Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate with WTI normally trading at a premium to Brent Crude.  However, over the last couple of weeks, Brent has climbed to a huge and record premium over WTI and has remained in the high 90’s.  At one point Brent was trading as much as $12 higher than WTI which is unheard of.

The significance of the way these two oils are trading is that Brent is a more accurate reflection of global oil prices and is therefore mirroring the record high prices we are seeing in the global food indexes.

Given the usual close correlation between the CCI and global crude oil prices and gold and silver, we can reasonably conclude that the correction in gold and silver is over and that the precious metals are going to start climbing higher.

As further evidence that we have reached an important low, bullish sentiment and the commitment of traders report are at levels seen at important bottoms.”

For those of you who are making monthly purchases of physical gold and silver, continue to do so and do not try to time these markets.  Evidence is mounting that both gold and silver are putting in a floor to the downside near these levels.  It will be interesting to see how high the next rally takes them.

För de som behöver ytterligare bevis för att det princip är omöjligt för guld att falla under 1000 dollar (sannolikt även 1200 dollar) och andra absurda nivåer som nämns av de som antingen missade tåget och vill kliva på eller de som inte gillar guld eftersom det utgör ett hot mot deras egna affärer bör läsa artikeln nedan:

China Central Bank Advisor Urges Increase In Official Gold And Silver Reserves

And so the long anticipated incursion by the PBOC, whose holdings of gold are behind even those of GLD, begins. Bloomberg has just reported, that “China central bank adviser Xia Bin said the country should increase its gold and silver reserves, the Economic Information Daily reported today, citing an interview with Xia.” But how can this be: after all China has trillions in USD-denominated reserves, and any indication that it believes these are based on a currency that may actually be impaired will be an act of Mutual Assured Destruction. Well, yes and no. China is merely taking the next defection step in what is already failed Nash equilibrium. The first? The Fed’s gross monetization of all US debt. The observant ones will realize that Chinese holdings in November were lower than they were in June of 2009! Who has picked up the slack? Why the Federal Reserve of course. Simply said, the Fed is explicitly making China’s creditor status increasingly less relevant. Zero Hedge has long been wondering how much longer China will take this direct defection in what previously had been a stable equilibrium balance in which China provides the US vendor financing, while the US imports China’s crap. As the Criminal Reserve is increasingly taking away the leverage that China used to enjoy as Creditor numero uno, it is only a matter of time before China fires back. And it may have just done that.

More from Bloomberg:

China should encourage foreign companies to list in the yuan-denominated market, the report said, citing Xia. The nation should slow the overseas listings of Chinese companies, especially resources related, strategic and monopoly firms, the report said, citing Xia.

For now this is still merely sabre ratling. However, one day soon, a report will come out confirming that the PBOC has purchased anywhere between 10 and 100 tonnes of gold (which it is rumored to be doing now in the form of stealth accumulation). That’s when things for the gold shorts, especially those whose massive position shorts have been grandfathered by the C(riminal)FTC, will get ugly.

För den som mot förmodan behöver mer bevis för att Grekland och Irland och länder som i framtiden kommer bli ‘räddade’ aldrig kommer att betala tillbaka sitt ‘räddningsbidrag’, bör kolla in nyheten från Reuters nedan.

DAVOS-EU may extend Greek, Irish bailouts to 30 years-sources

Jan 28 (Reuters) – European Union officials are considering extending euro zone bailout loans to Greece and Ireland to 30 years in a bid to draw a line under the bloc’s debt crisis, two euro zone sources said on Friday.

The sources said European Central Bank Governing Council member Axel Weber, head of Germany’s influential Bundesbank, had suggested stretching out the maturities from three years for Greece and seven for Ireland as part of a comprehensive package to overcome the crisis.

The idea surfaced in intensive talks among euro zone ministers, central bankers and officials on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, the sources said.

“There are all sorts of ideas. I don’t know how much weight this one carries. But of course it’s not unheard of. Britain and some other countries only paid off some World War One bonds just recently,” a senior euro zone source said.

Kommentaren i artikeln som antyder att detta på något sätt är normalt är rent löjeväckande då Storbritannien (och övriga länder) har tagit upp nya massiva lån för att betala av gamla lån. Sicken soppa och sicken propaganda.

Här är en kommentar från ZeroHedge:

Desperation kitchen sink anyone? The M2, which up until now was merely diagonal, is about to go parabolic. In the week ending 1/17/2011, Seasonally Adjusted M2 surged by $46.6 billion, the biggest weekly increase in the broadest tracked monetary aggregate (ever since the cost-cutting associated with discontinuing the M3) since 2008. One look at the chart below indicates precisely what is fueling the endless market ramp. Furthermore, for those who realize there is a 93% correlation between M2 and gold, we would certainly recommend putting on the M2/Gold convergence trade on.

Ett av de stora samtalsämnena på fredagen bland guldinvesterare var en artikel i Wall Street Journal, i vilken tidningen påstod att man hittat förklaringen till måndagens historiska ras i open interest för guld. Enligt tidningen berodde detta på att en liten handlare, vid namn Daniel Shak, med endast 10 miljoner dollar i eget kapital kunde kontrollera terminskontrakt för guld till ett värde av hela 850 miljoner dollar, motsvarande 10% av hela den amerikanska terminsmarknaden.

Att Shak konde kontrollera så många terminskontrakt berodde på att han tagit en gigantisk sk ‘calendar spread‘ position, där man t ex går kort på spotmarknaden och sedan hedgar dessa positioner med att gå lång i terminskontrakt som ligger längre fram i tiden. Har man en hedgad position så är marginalkraven mycket lägre då riskerna är lägre. När Shak sedan beslutade sig för att likvidera hela sin position så skall detta alltså ha resulterat i det gigantiska ‘open interest’ raset, varför många refererar till händelsen som The Shak Attack.

Här är ett utdrag från WSJ:

A huge trade by a tiny hedge fund has sent shudders through the gold market.

Thanks to the nature of futures trading, Daniel Shak’s $10 million hedge fund held gold contracts valued at more than $850 million, more than 10% of the main U.S. futures market, and the equivalent of South Africa’s annual gold production.

But as gold prices started falling this year, the trade, which was a combination of being long and short gold contracts—bets that prices will both rise and fall—started going bad. Monday, he liquidated his position, and is returning money to clients.

As a result, the number of gold contracts on CME Group Inc.’s Comex division plunged more than 81,000, to about 500,000, the biggest single reduction ever. While his trade didn’t account for all of the contracts, an average daily move is about 3,000 to 5,000 contracts.

That Mr. Shak and his firm, SHK Asset Management, could control one of the largest positions in the gold market underscores how leverage can enable investors to control huge positions in many commodity markets.

“Yeah, that was just me liquidating my spread position,” Mr. Daniel Shak, [of SHK Asset Management] 51 years old, said in an interview. “I had a significant, fully margined position. The dollar amount of the gold liquidation was very small, it was just a lot of contracts.”

Uppmärksamma och regelbundna läsare kanske såg att ‘S-P’ uppmärksammade WSJ-artikeln tidigt och postade en länk till artikeln bland kommentarerna på bloggen igår. Jag fann givetvis artikeln mycket intressant, men min magkänsla var att det var något som inte kändes helt rätt och att detta behövde undersökas vidare. Det verkar som om jag inte var ensam om denna känsla. Det här är vad Bill Murphy hade att säga:

That story had me scratching my head. Spread trading is mostly a function of interest rates, which are very low right now and not moving. In my old career I put on thousands of spread trades at a time. It is very difficult for me to imagine just spread trades in gold doing that kind of damage. Something is not right with that story.

Och Adrian Douglas från GATA var ännu mer skeptisk:

Everyone is happily touting this story to explain the 81,000 OI cratering on Monday which was the biggest one day drop of OI in history. http://www.gata.org/node/9540 . NOT SO FAST. This is baloney in my opinion.

The last COT report shows total spreads in managed money were 63,507 contracts. This “Shak” dude is a money manager so how did he liquidate 81,000 contracts? The total reported spreads were 103,947…are we meant to believe that this one dufus from Las Vegas had 80% of all spread contracts!!??

The WSJ article just stinks. For example people don’t say things like “Yeah, that was just me liquidating my spread position,” Mr. Shak, 51, said in an interview. In the article it says he was down 70% but quotes him as follows: “I just chose to close, I didn’t like my positions so I chose to liquidate, I wasn’t forced. I was in the process of closing anyway.”…You have to be kidding me!…70% down “he didn’t like his positions”!! That’s just the sort of thing an average Joe will say!

The Commodity Exchange Act provides anonymity for traders …we are still waiting for the investigation from 2008 in what happened in silver and who did what yet WSJ in a matter of days gets the name and all the trading info about the “Shak Attack”. This is an early April Fool’s spoof and very conveniently put out to kill everyone’s curiosity…move along nothing to see here just one guy liquidating 81,000 spread contracts!

Let’s hear it for the CFTC and the gold cartel and Obama’s goal of more transparency!

Vi har sett otaliga bevis för vad bankerna är kapabla till för att dölja sina smutsiga och illegala aktiviteter, det är därför fullt rimligt att vara skeptisk när man läser en artikel som den i WSJ.

Bankerna har under en längre tid anklagats för att manipulera marknaden för guld och silver, där deras gigantiska negativa papperspositioner varit en hörnsten. Bankerna skulle ta varje möjlighet att kunna skylla dessa positioner på en liten handlare som Shak, eller till och med erbjuda stora pengar till en någon som Shak för att ‘ta på sig skulden’ och därmed kunna fortsätta med sina aktiviteter. Jag säger definitivt inte att detta är fallet med Shak, men det är fullt möjligt, och motivet finns helt klart.

Guld och silver avslutade en annars bedrövlig vecka i superform och lyckades med konsstycket att notera en sk ‘key reversal’, vilket bådar mycket gott för nästa vecka.

Som vi nämnde häromdagen så gillar kartellen att trycka till guld vid viktiga tekniska stödnivåer för att skapa panikförsäljning, varefter guldet vänder upp då kartellen utnyttjar situationen för att täcka sina korta positioner. Ofta i vetskap om att en guld-positiv händelse är nära förestående.

Verkar som om torsdagens och fredagens handel kan vara ett praktexempel på just detta, då kartellen pressade ner priset under den vikiga 1320-nivån, vilket fick guldköparna att fly i panik. Idag kom så nyheten om omfattande oroligheter i Egypten, vilket var katalysatorn till dagens kraftiga uppgång.

Jag utesluter inte att kartellen kände till denna utveckling. Regelbundna läsare kommer säkert ihåg att vi så sent som i söndags skrev om att tullen i Egypten funnit gud och sedlar som någon försökte smuggla ut ur landet.

Här är en kommentar från Midas:

The riots in Egypt have expanded and are spreading throughout the Middle East, should this erupt in Saudi Arabia I think it is a safe bet that oil prices will skyrocket. This rioting has occurred on cue with Gold’s very oversold (the deepest in nearly a year) and is serving as catalyst for the reversal. Yesterday’s big drop in Gold and Silver prices were not accompanied by lows in the shares which leads me to believe that the bottom is now in. If this turns out to be so, we have probably seen the lows for the year and in my opinion we will not ever see the “1,200″ handle again in our lifetimes, time will tell.

Många har imponerats av hur snabbt de internationella storbankerna återhämtat sig efter kraschen 2008. De som satt sig in i detaljerna vet dock mycket väl att det var till största delen tack vare ändrade redovisningsregler, där bankerna tilläts att i princip värdera sina tillgångar helt godtyckligt istället för att låta marknaden sköta värderingen. Detta innebar att man kunde sälja tillgångar till överpris till bl a Federal Reserve och låta skattebetalarna ta hela smällen.

De ändrade redovisningsreglerna uppgavs dock vara av tillfällig natur (man skyllde på att det kaotiska och ansträngda läget innebar att tillgångar inte prissattes korrekt av marknaden) och att så fort läget stabiliserats så skulle de gamla reglerna, där marknaden fick sätta priset, mer eller mindre återinföras.

Häromdagen kom dock det allt annat än oväntade beskedet att FASB, den amerikanska motsvarigheten till den internationella standardsättaren för redovisning IASB, viker sig efter påtryckningar från bankvärlden och kommer inte att återinföra marknadsprissättning av tillgångar.

Se detta som en bevis för att den finansiella situationen, trots att man lyckats sälja av en hel del skräp till skattebetalarna och trots det påstådda förbättrade läget, så kan man ÄNDÅ inte återinföra marknadsprissättning då ponzi-spelet troligtvis skulle kollapsa.

Här är ett utdrag från Bloomberg:

The Financial Accounting Standards Board backed off from its plan to make banks use market values to calculate how much the loans on their books are worth.

The panel, which sets U.S. accounting standards, today approved a change to its proposal that will allow banks to report some financial instruments on their balance sheets at amortized cost, as they currently do, rather than at fair value. The biggest U.S. banks and the American Bankers Association had opposed the original plan.

FASB’s planned rule would have forced lenders to mark deposits and loans to market values as they already do for traded securities. Not all changes in the values of assets and liabilities would affect net income, since some fair-value adjustments can be recorded in what’s called “other comprehensive income,” a balance-sheet item added or deducted from equity.

Här är en kommentar från Jim Sinclair:

I believe you were informed a long time ago about each of these manoeuvres used to make billions in OTC derivatives.

Notice how all the officers and board of director members have been hiding now for years? Their silence is deafening.

Och här är en kommentar från ZeroHedge:

By now everyone is aware that following tremendous pressure by the banker lobby, which knows too well the Ponzi jig will be immediately up if Quantitative Easing’s TBTF Madoffs are forced to disclose the true value of their worthless assets (yes, true value comes from asset cash flow generation, not from diluting money), the FASB decided to stop its push for a return to MTM.

From the WSJ: “Accounting rule makers, bowing to an intense lobbying campaign, took a key step Tuesday to reverse a controversial proposal that would have required banks to use market prices rather than cost in order to value the loans they hold on their balance sheets.”

Transparency? What moron would propose that in an economy that is so obviously healthy and surging. After all, the only way to validate a surging stock market, er, economic recovery, is through bullshit numbers pulled out of the ass. That way they can pretend to tell us the truth, we can pretend to believe them, and everyone will frontrun the Fed who pretends not to be buying stocks. And it would have been great if it ended there. Alas no. Following the announcement, none other than Bill Isaac, current Chairman of LECG, but far more importantly, former Chairman of the FDIC under Ronald Reagan decided to send out a gloating email to his entire address book explaining what a moral victory it is to kill the MTM monster that is the sole reason for the near collapse of capitalism in 2008, and how truly wonderful it is for everyone to live in perpetual lack of knowledge of what the true value of any company’s assets really is. Unfortunately, this just goes to show what the existing, extremely bribed, leaders of the nation’s most vital organizations really think.

Vi har tidigare tagit upp det rekordstora intresset för fysiskt silver i januari efter att priset började manipuleras ned. Silver har dock inte tidigare sålts slut helt, utan det har mer eller mindre alltid funnits större 100 ounce tackor till försäljning.

I en purfärsk intervju med CMI Gold & Silver får vi dock veta att även dessa större tackor kommer att säljas ut inom loppet av några dagar och att det kan dröja månader innan nya leveranser. Detta är med största sannolikt situationen för andra säljare av fysiskt silver, vilket ytterligare bekräftar den extraordinära efterfrågesituationen för silver och förklarar varför t ex Eric Sprott är så oerhört optimistisk över prisutvecklingen för silver.

All 100 Ounce Silver Bars Will be Gone in a Matter of Days

Today King World News interviewed one of the top gold and silver dealers in the United States about tightness in the silver market.  Bill Haynes is President and owner of CMI Gold & Silver for and when asked about a shortage in  silver he stated:

“All of the major suppliers of 100 ounce silver bars are either weeks or months out, some will not even take orders.  I had some conversations with a number of people who buy from them, had to dig through the information and some of them revealed that they thought the refineries were having trouble and the manufacturers were having trouble getting the physical product which falls right into the silver shortage.”

“It’s starting to show up in the 100 ounce silver bar market which is a primary investment vehicle for individuals who want to buy silver for investment purposes.  It does surprise me because we did not see the buying that we saw in 2008, 2009 when our safes were absolutely emptied of 100 ounce silver bars, and that’s the type of buying I thought we would have to see in order for there to be a shortage of 100 ounce silver bars. 

I was able to get 100 ounce silver bars (recently) and then all of the sudden these guys I call them and say ok, we are talking 100 ounce silver bars, they’ll say well, it’s a month out on any order you place today.  And then I have people telling me they will not take any orders on 100 ounce silver bars until May.

There’s a couple of things that are going to happen that is going to shut a lot of people out of this market.  All of the 100 ounce bars are going to be gone in a matter of days, not weeks, days.  Then people are going to have to put up their money and they are going to have to wait weeks or months before they get their bars.  They are also going to have to pay higher premiums for that product because the marketplace will put a higher premium on the bars on a price drop that depletes all of the vaults around the country.”  

You can hear the full audio interview with Bill Haynes on the KWN Weekly Metals Wrap this weekend along with Dan Norcini of jsminest.com.  We are seeing the same type of shortages develop that we saw in 2008, but this time at a much higher price level.