Finansiella Insikter

Efter att Irlands statsminister Brian Cowen tvingats kasta in handduken som ledare för landets största parti Fianna Fail under lördagen kommer nu nästa bakslag, Miljöpartiet (Green Party) meddelade på söndagen att man lämnar koalitionsregeringen och intar en oppositionsposition.

Detta kommer sannolikt att leda till stor osäkerhet kring det Irländska ‘räddningspaketet’ som ännu inte är godkänt (se utdraget från artikeln nedan).

The November bailout of the Irish economy consisted of a series of different financing packages being combined into a larger total. The first funds available under the bailout were provided by the raiding of the Irish retirement fund by its bankers. The next steps were to be funded by the EU and IMF funding sources, once the people of Ireland were legally subjected to the bailout requirements. The bailout never made it to a full vote before the collapse of the Fianna Fáil party.

This leaves Ireland in the unique position of being able to reclaim its future, by denying its past. The citizens of Ireland have not accepted the bailout. The coalition is not expected to be able to put the matter to a vote before the election.

“All we know is we are going to get an election on or before March 11 but that is about it,” said Micheal Marsh, professor of politics at Trinity College Dublin, calling the events of the past week “bizarre.”

“If the conditions in which all of this was going on were not so serious it really would be farcical.”

The people are clear they plan on voting for anyone who will fight the bailout. This makes the chances of a post-election bail out vote of acceptance unlikely. If the Bailout fails to be voted on in the coming days, it may never make it to a vote.

The Irish people are overwhelmingly against the loss of their Sovereignty because bankers were allowed to take outsized risk. The fact that these same bankers were allowed to book extremely large bonuses for bankrupting the nation is at the core of the problem.

När den nya regeringen, som sannolikt kommer att bestå av den nuvarande oppositionen, tar plats är det fullt rimligt att den utvärderar räddningspaketet ännu en gång. Det har varit mycket upprörda känslor kring hur bankerna har kommit undan och det är fullt möjligt att räddningspaketet måste förhandlas om vilket skulle leda till stor turbulens på finansmarknaderna.

Enligt news.egypt.com (via ZeroHedge) har inte mindre än 59 försändelser upptäckts vid en av Egyptens flygplatser där guld samt utländsk valuta till ett värde av ‘tiotals miljoner’ dollar gömts inuti bland annat örngott.

Regelbundna läsare kommer säkert ihåg den avsatte Tunisiske presidenten Ben Ali flydde med 1,5 ton guld, vilket gör att man kan undra om den egyptiska ledningen förbereder sig för liknande upplopp som i Tunisien.

Oavsett så är denna utveckling högst alarmerande eftersom den, enligt min mening, annars sannolikt kan betyda att någon/några försöker lägga beslag på guld i full vetskap om att marknaden för pappersguld (där det sålts uppemot 100 gånger så mycket pappersguld som det finns fysiskt guld) kommer att falla samman. Det kan givetvis också vara en kombination av dessa.

Egypt Proactively Preparing For Tunisian-Style Rioting: Airport Intercepts 59 Outbound Gold Shipments Worth Tens Of Millions

 

After a week ago we learned that the central bank of Tunisia had parted with 23% of its gold stash courtesy of now deposed president who fled the country with a 1.5 ton shipment of gold, it appears that Egypt is preparing for a comparable spike in revolutionary activity. Only unlike the now former Tunisian president whose gold sequestering actions were retroactive and thus, quite lucky to succeed, Egypt has taken proactive measures. According to Egypt News, the country’s airport has intercepted 59 shipments of gold directed for the Netherlands “worth tens of millions.” The gold, as well as an indeterminate amount of foreign currencies, was hidden in pillow cases: uh, cotton may not show up on X-Rays, but gold sure does. We eagerly await to learn how big the decline in the country’s official holdings 75.6 tonnes of gold will be after this most recent episode confirming that gold is precisely money. And all this happening despite gold’s complete and thorough inedibility.

From News Egypt, google translated from the Arabic:

Authority announced today the state of emergency to re-examine the expulsion of 59 gold and foreign currencies was on its way out of Egypt on the path of smuggling after the discovery of tearing some pillow cases before they are shipped to the Netherlands.

The workers were shipping on the plane heading to Amsterdam, the Netherlands were surprised to tear bags under the 59 parcels containing large quantities of gold and foreign currencies worth tens of millions were reported to officials.

Committee was formed headed by one official of the Egyptian banks have been re-examine the packages and parcels to make sure that shortages and supervise the shipment on the plane.

Här är Dan Norcinis kommentar till Alan Greenspans positiva uttalande om en guldstandard som vi skrev om på fredagen. Kan inte annat än att hålla med.

Det fascinerande är att personer som Greenspan kan komma undan med kovändningar som det här utan att folk ens lyfter blicken från Lets Dance.

Friends,

I want to go on record with comments about Alan Greenspan’s remarks about a gold standard that hit the news today. That this man, who has rightly been criticized for speaking in riddles so that his hearers could take from his comments that which they wanted to hear him say, has now apparently changed his tune once again and yet can do so without the least bit of remorse is infuriating to me. He basked in the accolades of his peers in the financial community being acclaimed, “The Maestro”, because of his supposed ability to deal with financial crises and keep the US economy humming along in spite of it all come hell or high water. Yet we all know that his manner of so doing was to ramp up the printing presses and have them running at warp speed, flooding the system with liquidity at the first sign of any potential danger signs. Whether it was Mexico, or Russia, or Y2K, or the breaking of the tech stock bubble , his solution was always the same, lower interest rates and increase liquidity.

It was under his watch that the stock market bubble burst at the beginning of the last decade which up until it did, he praised as the outcome of increases in productivity. It was he that praised the gigantic derivatives market as another arrow in the quiver of productivity until we all watched it disintegrate into a heap of goo as Lehman Brothers went under, setting off a cascade of defaults and credit deleveraging, the effects of which are still being felt today.

It was his policy of keeping interest rates artificially low that blew one bubble after another which moved from one sector to another, first in stocks, then in housing and then finally in commodities until they all burst in succession.

Yet, now that he is out of his office and no longer has to be the politician and the Central Banker, he can call for a return to some mechanism to hinder his successor from the creation of unlimited amounts of fiat currency in order to prevent the “deleterious” effects of inflation, as he terms it. Why did he not use his pulpit during his tenure to advocate such a thing as a return to some sort of gold standard or currency board? He shares as much blame as any for the condition of the US Dollar and the horrific mess that has been created by Federal Reserve policies over the last decade. While Chairman Bernanke is engaging in Quantitative Easing, he is only following the policies of his predecessor to their logical conclusion.

Here are the former Chairman’s own words in Congressional Testimony taken in July, 2005 in response to a question and some comments posed by Congressman Ron Paul. Note his remarks about returning to a gold standard a mere 6 years ago and contrast those with his recent comments of today. Note also the absurd comment in the last sentence that Central Bankers had been acting responsibly:

“But as I’ve testified here before to a similar question, central bankers began to realize in the late 1970s how deleterious a factor the inflation was.

And, indeed, since the late ’70s, central bankers generally have behaved as though we were on the gold standard.

And, indeed, the extent of liquidity contraction that has occurred as a consequence of the various different efforts on the part of monetary authorities is a clear indication that we recognize that excessive creation of liquidity creates inflation which, in turn, undermines economic growth.”

So that the question is: Would there be any advantage, at this particular stage, in going back to the gold standard?

And the answer is: I don’t think so, because we’re acting as though we were there.

“Would it have been a question at least open in 1981, as you put it? And the answer is yes.

Remember, the gold price was $800 an ounce. We were dealing with extraordinary imbalances, interest rates were up sharply, the system looked to be highly unstable ­ and we needed to do something.

Now, we did something. The United States ­ Paul Volcker, as you may recall, in 1979 came into office and put a very severe clamp on the expansion of credit, and that led to a long sequence of events here, which we are benefiting from up to this date.

So I think central banking, I believe, has learned the dangers of fiat money, and I think, as a consequence of that, we’ve behaved as though there are, indeed, real reserves underneath the system.”

Alan Greenspan today:

“We have at this particular stage a fiat money which is essentially money printed by a government and it’s usually a central bank which is authorized to do so. Some mechanism has got to be in place that restricts the amount of money which is produced, either a gold standard or a currency board, because unless you do that all of history suggest that inflation will take hold with very deleterious effects on economic activity… There are numbers of us, myself included, who strongly believe that we did very well in the 1870 to 1914 period with an international gold standard.”

Alan Greenspan 40 years ago:

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. … This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property
rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”

New York Times skriver att delstater i USA förbereder ett sätt för att försätta sig i konkurs för att komma undan skuldberget. Detta innebär sannolikt både att man ställer in betalningarna till innehavarna av obligationer, sk municipal bonds (Muni bonds), men kanske framförallt att man försöker komma undan pensionsåtaganden.

Här är ett utdrag från artikeln:

Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers. Proponents say some states are so burdened that the only feasible way out may be bankruptcy, giving Illinois, for example, the opportunity to do what General Motors did with the federal government’s aid.

Beyond their short-term budget gaps, some states have deep structural problems, like insolvent pension funds, that are diverting money from essential public services like education and health care. Some members of Congress fear that it is just a matter of time before a state seeks a bailout, say bankruptcy lawyers who have been consulted by Congressional aides.

Inte för att detta kommer som någon större överraskning, men att sanningen så sakta kommer fram är troligtvis ett tecken på att läget är långt mycket värre än så.

Här är Jim Sinclairs kommentar:

Nations do not go broke. Nations do not default. Nations have a blank check to write with no balance.

The currency collapses. States do go broke.

Först var det Robert Zoellick som uttalande sig om att guld bör användas som ‘referenspunkt’ i det kommande monetära systemet och sedan var det Thomas Hoenig som uttalande sig om att en guldstandard är ett ‘respektabelt monetärt system’.

Nu har ingen mindre än Alan Greenspan uttalat sig positivt om en guldstandard. Greenspan hade följande att säga i en intervju med Fox Business (se hela klippet nedan):

We have at this particular stage a fiat money which is essentially money printed by a government and it’s usually a central bank which is authorized to do so. Some mechanism has got to be in place that restricts the amount of money which is produced, either a gold standard or a currency board, because unless you do that all of history suggest that inflation will take hold with very deleterious effects on economic activity… There are numbers of us, myself included, who strongly believe that we did very well in the 1870 to 1914 period with an international gold standard.

I vår artikel ‘Greenspan om guld‘ kan ni läsa om den intressanta historien om Greenspans ‘förhållande till guld’. Han visste mycket väl vad guld representerade, men valde givetvis att istället ‘sälja sin själ’ och motarbeta det i rollen som ordförande för Federal Reserve.

Nu passar det dock att säga sanningen. Ni kommer att få se mer av denna typen av ‘bekännelser’ framöver som kommer att verifiera mycket av det som vi talar om i ‘Den kommande Finansiella Tsunamin‘.

Här är en kommentar från Mike Krieger:

Stunner: Gold Standard Fully Supported By… Alan Greenspan!?

You read that right. After such establishment “luminaries” as World Bank president Robert Zoellick, Warren Buffett’s father Howard, Jim Grant, and, most recently, Kansas Fed president Thomas Hoenig, all voiced their support for a return to a gold standard, the most recent addition to the motley group of contrite voodoo shamans is none othe than the man who is singlehandedly responsible for America’s addiction to cheap toxic credit, who spawned such destroyers of the middle class as the current Chaircreature, and who currently is the chief advisor in John Paulson’s crusade to gobble up every ounce of deliverable physical in the world: former Fed Chairman – Alan Greenspan!

In an interview with Fox Business, the man who refuses to go away into that good night: “We have at this particular stage a fiat money which is essentially money printed by a government and it’s usually a central bank which is authorized to do so. Some mechanism has got to be in place that restricts the amount of money which is produced, either a gold standard or a currency board, because unless you do that all of history suggest that inflation will take hold with very deleterious effects on economic activity… There are numbers of us, myself included, who strongly believe that we did very well in the 1870 to 1914 period with an international gold standard.”

And a further stunner: Greenspan himself wonders if we really need a central bank. Now our only question: why couldn’t the maestro speak as clearly and coherently during his tenure which resulted in our current near-terminal financial state. And as a reminder, courtesy of Dylan Grice, if and when we do get a return to a gold standard there would be a need to reindex the monetary base to a real time equivalent price of gold, putting the price of the precious metal at about $6,300: “The US owns nearly 263m troy ounces of gold (the world’s biggest holder) while the Fed’s monetary base is $1.7 trillion. So the price of gold at which the US dollars would be fully gold-backed is currently around $6,300.” And here you have people worried about day trading volatility…

I sin senaste intervju med KWN ger den insiktsfulle James Turk givetvis sin syn på nedgången för guld och silver men kommenterar även nyheten häromdagen att Portugal och Spanien väljer att sälja sina statspapper till ett syndikat av banker (som sedan säljer dessa vidare) för att de är livrädda för att en auktion skall gå snett. Turk kommenterar även nyheten om Irlands centralbanks smått desperata bokföringsknep för att hantera situationen med accelererande bankuttag från irländare som ser vad som håller på att ske.

The last time we spoke Eric, the two key overhead resistance levels I mentioned were $1,400 for gold and $30 for silver.  I expect that we will be probing those resistance levels in the near future.  The real question in my mind is whether we can take out these resistance levels on the first attempt, or whether the market needs to trade sideways longer in order to build more of a base.

Regardless, the risk here is not being in the market, because once these resistance levels are taken out, both metals are ready to explode to the upside. 

Right now over here in Europe, the periphery countries such as Spain and Portugal are changing the way they borrow.  Their bankers are putting together a syndicate of lenders so that neither country has a failed bond auction.  The net effect is not only are they trying to paper over the sovereign debt crisis, now they are trying to hide it behind closed doors with these gimmicks.

Another slight of hand which has been getting a lot of attention recently is the accounting shenanigans by the Irish central bank.  The unexplained build-up of other assets on its balance sheet suggests to me that they are playing a very dangerous game.  Instead of allowing Irish commercial bank assets to contract to meet the decline in deposits at those banks, the authorities are relying on accounting deception. 

If the bank run on Ireland continues, which is likely, the other assets on the Irish central bank’s balance sheet will not be able to be used to obtain liquidity from the ECB, thus potentially leaving Ireland in an illiquid, precarious monetary position.  Interestingly, one would expect to see these steps from a country prior to that country exiting the Euro altogether.  The question then becomes, is Ireland setting up to leave the Euro?

All of these indicators are simply bullish underpinnings which are paving the way for the next leg higher in both gold and silver.

Ni kanske kommer ihåg hur Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) höjde marginalkraven för guld och silver i flera omgångar under fjärde kvartalet 2010 i vad som liknade en panikåtgärd för att förhindra att guld och silver skulle explodera uppåt. Ni kanske också kommer ihåg hur guld och silver föll kraftigt precis innan CME offentliggjorde höjningarna.

Inte för att det kommer som någon direkt överraskning, med det verkar som om det har hänt igen. CME höjde nämligen marginalkraven igår för framförallt guld och silver och beskedet kom efter att de båda metallerna fallit kraftigt. Återigen så fick alltså kartellen (JPM, HSBC etc) förvarning om vad som skulle ske, eller rättare sagt kartellens order till CME gick igenom.

Detta i kombination med CFTCs nya ‘regler’ som gör att JP Morgan kan fortsätta att blanka silver gör det fullkomligt uppenbart att marknaden är helt korrupt och manipulerad.

Här är ett bra citat (via Midas):

“Anyone who now says Silver is not a manipulated market can no longer be classified as naive. They are either a complete idiot or a full fledged liar because the CFTC has now publicly grandfathered the fraud which they were supposed to be investigating. All that is now left for the coupe de grace is a CFTC announcement of how “clean” the markets are.”

Här är mer information om marginalhöjningen från ZeroHedge:

Wonder why the smart money was rushing headlong out of gold and silver over the past few days, and especially today in the AM session? Here is your answer: in tried and true fashion the Comex just hiked margins in gold, and silver by about 6%, and threw in a few other commodities to mask things up. And unlike the last time it did it, when it could at least pretend to justify its actions with the surge in gold price, this time with the PM complex dropping, we wonder what excuse the CME will use this time. Initial and Maintenance margins were just increased in everything from 10 Tr Oz Gold Futs, Comex 100 Gold Futures, Comex Miny Gold and Silver, E-mini Gold and Silver,  Comex 5000 silver futures to Silver trade at settle. Also added were Copper, Iron Ore, propane, butane, and other nat gas. Most notably, and confirming that the administration and the money printing authorities are terrified by the surge in crude, the CME also hiked margins in various refined products and coal. The official scramble to “contain” the aftermath of Bernanke’s lunacy is accelerating. We wonder when REDI, Prime Brokers and E-trade will comparable collapse purchasing margin for stock trading accounts. Of course, as with all other such superficial market interventions, the impact is shallow and is overrun in a matter of days.

And no…there was absolutely no leak this time. We promise.

Här är ett utdrag från den alltid lika kompetente Dan Norcinis marknadskommentar för guld och silver som kan vara lite extra intressant med tanke på dagens nedgång. Dan ger nedan några viktiga nivåer för guld och silver att hålla ögonen på, framförallt 1320 för guld och 27 för silver.

Weakness in gold and silver were blamed on several factors as trade moved into New York this morning.

Overnight Brazil hiked its core interest rate by 50 basis points and there was additional chatter of further interest rate hikes in China to combat surging inflation pressures on the heels of some data out of that quarter suggesting previous hikes in both interest rates and reserve ratio requirements are not having much effect on taming price rises. That led to a general reduction of the “risk trades” and selling in commodities as a whole. Witness the case of the two markets I like to track in the sector, copper and crude, which were both sharply lower, crude oil failing to hold support at $90 and copper getting spanked for more than 10 cents. Even corn, which has a strongly bullish set of fundamentals did not escape the selling barrage when it opened for trading in the pit this morning although it did finally absorb the algorithm selling before moving higher again. At least fundamentals are still ruling in a few of our markets. Ditto for wheat which is now trading above the $8.00 level as I prepare these comments. Food prices continue to rise – period.

There was also an unemployment number which came in lower than some were expecting leading some to talk up the prospects of the US economy which brought some strength into the US Dollar. The Dollar also was the recipient of a sharp selloff in the Yen and the commodity based currencies which moved lower as the risk trades were dumped. (Bonds were also sold down).

There was also the rather strange report out of the CME Group that the mini gold contract was to be delisted. This is the 33 ounce contract not the micro gold contract. This abrupt announcement, without any explanation, (there was a blurb on their website) had many traders wondering what was going on and why. Some sold first and waited for an explanation later. I am still going to try to see if I can find out what the reason behind that sudden announcement was.

All of the above combined with a rather big onslaught of selling in gold and especially in silver which took out a critical support level on its daily chart.

Gold dropped as low as $1342 on its chart, a level which it must now hold to prevent a deeper correction down towards the $1320 level. The daily chart pattern has taken on a decidedly negative aspect with today’s sharp move lower. Perhaps a bit of saving grace for the metal is that the funds have been liquidating longs for some time now and have greatly reduced long side exposure back to levels last seen when gold was trading closer to $920 or so. That will help some but if for some reason the price level were to break down through $1320, a very substantial long side selling rout would take place that would damage investor sentiment towards gold in the immediate term. We’ll have to see where and when this selling barrage finds a respite. Bears were attempting to force it down through $1340 throughout the session but after the initial drop down towards that level, were unable to do so. Volume was very heavy today suggesting a great deal of emotional based selling. It is going to take some time to therefore repair the damage to the bullish psyche. Even with today’s sell off in gold, it is only down about 6% off its recent peak. Considering the fact that it has moved up 24% since July of last year, that is really insignificant.

On the weekly chart, gold is forming what can be viewed as a potential rounded top formation with support evident near the $1320 level. That is why this level is important for the metal to hold to prevent a deeper setback towards $1285 – $1280. It will take a closing push past $1370 to now turn the tide in favor of the bulls with $1380 to uncover buy stops from fresh shorts.

Silver’s breach of $28, a critical chart support level, casts a negative pall over that market. It had been uncovering some decent buying support near the 50 day moving average but that simply evaporated in the general rout among the metals today. Tightness in the physical market is apparently no match for the paper market. Used to be that in the childhood game of rock, paper, scissors, that paper covered rock so I suppose the same applies with the Comex paper market. It now needs to hold $27 or it will drop to $26.40 or so with the potential for $25 in the cards should it fail to stabilize near that level.

The HUI gapped lower today and now looks like it might want to head down towards the 490 level. It is extremely oversold on the daily technical charts and looks to be approaching levels that should put a halt to the severe selling. The region near 480, the 50 week moving average, should stabilize the sector, as it has proved to be a good level since July 2009 at containing all downward thrusts in price. Bottom pickers will probably begin nibbling soon.

Vi har tidigare tagit upp det faktum att vi kommer att få se mycket volatilitet under 2011 i takt med att guld och silver går in i en accelererande uppgångsfas.

De första veckorna har visat oss lite av vad detta innebär, även om nedgången (än så länge) inte har varit så våldsam (trots dagens nedgång). Under sådana här perioder gäller det att ‘ta ett steg tillbaka’ och inte dras med i de kortsiktiga svängningarna, hur kraftiga de än blir, och se det hela ifrån ett större perspektiv.

Investerare av guld och silver som varit med ett tag har lärt sig detta den hårda vägen, men har belönats rikligt genom att inte låt sig avskräckas av den dagliga propagandan eller centralbankernas uppenbara manipulationer. Har personligen utnyttjat dagens rea till att utöka mina positioner.

För nytillkomna och kanske nervösa investerare i guld och silver kan kanske följande kloka ord (från en GATA anhängare) vara lugnande:

1. As markets become more unstable and the necessary manipulation to keep them afloat grows larger, volatility will only get worse, SO GROW A THICK SKIN!

2. Unless you are one of these individuals who thrive on stress, tailor your trading/investments to that which allows you to sleep well at night as your mental well being will be your most valuable asset in these times to come

3. Stop worrying about the short-term loss in value of your portfolio and rather see now is an excellent buying opportunity

4. Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture – we are in a long term PM bull – the party hasn’t even started yet

5. Unless you are nimble and accept the risk, don’t trade this market; rather dollar cost average on weakness/dips. With rising inflation you gain every day in nominal terms. Now is not the time to be greedy – rather develop a wealth preservation mindset.

6. Count your wealth in physical ounces not paper or digital fiat

7. Regardless of the recent fall in the gold/silver price, there is only one way this market will end and that’s with a mania blow off.

8. Why? Be under no illusion: We are witnessing the death of the present global fiat monetary system. Adjust your reality accordingly.

9. Understand that we are witnessing a rare paradigm change – one where the old rules won’t necessarily apply in the near future

10. Don’t underestimate the current systemic weakness. If you are still in stocks and shares develop an crisis exit strategy for when (not if) the banking system fails. Even PM shares won’t be worth squat if they can’t be exchanged for physical bullion in a crisis where ALL paper derivatives are mistrusted. Mining share certificates also won’t be worth a damn when their underlying assets convert to ‘deep storage’ govt. assets.