Finansiella Insikter

En del läsare kanske kommer ihåg att vi för drygt tre veckor sedan skrev om att den egyptiska tullen påträffat ett stort antal försändelser med fysiskt guld som någon försökte smuggla ut. En naturlig fråga att ställa sig då var om Egypten stod inför en liknande situation som Tunisien. Nu vet vi att så var fallet.

Frågan kvarstår dock vem som försökte smuggla ut detta guld. En artikel i The Telegraph (via ZeroHedge) ger oss troligen svaret, då den nämner att Mubarak frenetiskt försökt att rädda undan sina tillgångar, inte minst genom att ta med sig guld ut ur landet. Tidningen nämner att detta mer eller mindre har varit hela anledningen till den försenade avgången.

Skall som sagt bli intressant att se om den egyptiska centralbanken fick behålla några guldtackor efter Mubaraks plundring. Eller är det, som ZeroHedge cyniskt skriver, så att centralbanken bara kommer att se till att fylla valven med guldpläterad volfram.

The Reason For Mubarak’s Power Hand Off Delay: Plundering The Gold

It’s official: as Egypt was burning, Mubarak was stealing the gold. When we reported, presumably jokingly, two weeks ago that the Egyptian Central Bank may have been plundered, it turns out we were pretty much accurate once again. For all those wondering why Mubarak was refusing to hand over power for the past two weeks as hundreds of people were dying, we now have the answer – it was all just to make sure he transferred his assets, especially gold, to safe regimes (in the process paying tens of millions in commissions to that most noble of jobs – the banker class). The Telegraph reports: “A US official told The Sunday Telegraph: “Hosni Mubarak used the 18 days it took for protesters to topple him to shift his vast wealth into untraceable accounts overseas, Western intelligence sources have said…There’s no doubt that there will have been some frantic financial activity behind the scenes. They can lose the homes and some of the bank accounts, but they will have wanted to get the gold bars and other investments to safe quarters. The Mubaraks are understood to have wanted to shift assets to Gulf states where they have considerable investments already – and, crucially, friendly relations. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have frequently been mentioned as likely final destinations for Mr Mubarak and possibly his family.”As usual, we remind readers that according to the World Gold Council, Egypt had 75.6 tonnes of gold at the end of 2010. Should this number not be reduced following Mubarak’s plundering, we will know just how pervasive Tungsten is in the world central banking cartel.

From Telegraph:

The former Egyptian president is accused of amassing a fortune of more than £3 billion – although some suggest it could be as much as £40 billion – during his 30 years in power. It is claimed his wealth was tied up in foreign banks, investments, bullion and properties in London, New York, Paris and Beverly Hills.

In the knowledge his downfall was imminent, Mr Mubarak is understood to have attempted to place his assets out of reach of potential investigators.

On Friday night Swiss authorities announced they were freezing any assets Mubarak and his family may hold in the country’s banks while pressure was growing for the UK to do the same. Mr Mubarak has strong connections to London and it is thought many millions of pounds are stashed in the UK.

But a senior Western intelligence source claimed that Mubarak had begun moving his fortune in recent weeks.

“We’re aware of some urgent conversations within the Mubarak family about how to save these assets,” said the source, “And we think their financial advisers have moved some of the money around. If he had real money in Zurich, it may be gone by now.”

Perhaps Goldman Sachs can take a proactive PR step and disclose to the population that the flow trade-frontrunning hedge fund had nothing to do with facilitating the transfer of Mubarak’s billions in stolen wealth from point A to point B. And perhaps all other banks can follow suit. Either that, or we can all just wait for Mubarak’s sworn deposition when he is put on trial for crimes against the Egyptian people some time in 1-2 months. Doing text searches for “Goldman” in those thousand page PDFs will be breeze…

För er som investerar i jordartsmetaller (eller oxider som det egentligen handlar om) kan säkert följande artikel från WSJ vara av intresse, där det framgår att Kina ytterligare stärker greppet om marknaden genom att bygga upp strategiska reserver.

I en annan artikel från AP nyligen framkom det dessutom att Kina förstatligat 11 gruvor, vilket ytterligare kommer att pressa upp priserna ytterligare.

Sammantaget lät detta lär inte göra det lättare för alla företag som suktar efter dessa oxider som i många fall är helt nödvändiga för att ens få produkterna att fungera. Inte undra på att gruvbolag verksamma inom denna sektor spås en så ljus framtid. Se investeringsportföljen för förslag på bolag att investera i.

Här är ett par intressanta urklipp från de båda artiklarna:

China Moves to Strengthen Grip Over Supply of Rare-Earth Metals

SHANGHAI—China is building strategic reserves in rare-earth metals, an effort that could give Beijing increased power to influence global prices and supplies in a sector it already dominates.

Details of the stockpiling plans haven’t been made public. But the outlines of the effort have emerged in recent statements from Chinese government agencies, state-controlled companies and reports in government-run media. The reports say storage facilities built in recent months in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia can hold more than the 39,813 metric tons China exported last year.

The Chinese stockpiling, under the direction of the Ministry of Land and Resources, began with a pilot project almost a year ago in China’s primary mining region of Baotou in Inner Mongolia and is related to the ministry’s assertion of authority in recent years over mining regions. At least 10 storage facilities are being built and managed by the world’s largest producer of rare-earth metals, government-controlled Baotou Steel Rare-Earth (Group) Hi-Tech Co. Chinese state media reports say stockpiles may eventually top 100,000 metric tons.

In their limited comments about strategic reserves of rare-earth minerals, Chinese officials have cited the need to protect national resources, reduce pollution and save energy, the same factors used to explain China’s export quotas.

A 2009 policy paper on minerals by the Resources Ministry cited a need “to regulate the supply-demand relationship in the market and implement government industrial policy.”

It is unclear how much day-to-day control Beijing authorities actually have of their rare-earths industry. The Resources Ministry in policies dating to 1999 repeatedly has described rare-earth production as disorderly. Nor has the government spelled out what supplies will get diverted to national stockpiles.

But the ministry increasingly is asserting authority over rare-earth mining as part of a broader program that has seen the government move to manage more than 50 commodity-production zones producing coal, iron ore and vanadium. Eight rare-earth zones were put under national administration in 2006, while Beijing has specified that more than 1,600 mining blocs are subject to central-government planning policies and hundreds of mines will be closed.

The ministry extended its reach in January to include a region in southeastern Jiangxi Province where a particularly scarce class of rare-earth minerals is prevalent. That move, announced in a one-paragraph notice dated Jan. 4, covers 11 rare-earth mining blocks over a little more than half an acre in the Jiangxi area of Ganzhou. The area is known for deposits of particularly rare, premium-priced “heavy” rare-earth metals, such as terbium, which is used in fuel cells.

“The announcement is to promote an overall planning over the rare-earth mining industry,” said Chen Zhenheng, deputy director of the Chinese Society of Rare Earths industry association.

China brings 11 rare earth mines under state control

BEIJING (AFP) – China has brought 11 rare earth mines under state control as Beijing consolidates the industry — a move analysts said Thursday could drive up prices of the elements, used in mp3 players and hybrid cars.

Authorities have targeted mines in the eastern province of Jiangxi, which is rich in heavy rare earths, as it seeks to strengthen “protection and reasonable development” of the sector, the land and resources ministry said this week.

The ministry said Monday the 11 mines covering an area of 2,534 square kilometres (978 square miles) were the first batch of “state planned mining zones” for rare earths.

Analysts said the move to bring the mines under state control was a key step towards consolidating the fragmented industry in the south and would likely increase the cost of the elements.

“Prices will go up once (mining) concentration rises and the state strengthens control,” said Sang Yongliang, an analyst with Guotai Jun’an Securities in Shanghai.

Sang said the government may be targeting heavy rare earths, which are more expensive than the light elements because of their scarcity.

De numera välkända ‘silver björnarna’ är tillbaka i ett fjärde avsnitt för att ge oss en uppdatering kring manipulationen av silver. Det verkar som om Blythe Masters har ett litet problem…

Först Tunisien, sedan Egypten. Via ZeroHedge kan vi nu läsa att det planeras en stor demonstration i Algeriets huvudstad under lördagen. Kan Algeriet bli nästa dominobricka att falla?

Algeria Next?

For all those on revolution withdrawal, fear not: there are at least 20 more countries to go (many of which hilariously fall in Jim O’Neill’s N-11 list – does the N stand for Next to revolt Jim?). Tomorrow, we may get the next one. Thousands of police are reportedly being drafted into the Algerian capital ahead of planned pro-democracy marches, opposition groups have said. Said Sadi, the head of the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), said authorities were moving to prevent Saturday’s protests in Algiers from taking place.

From Al Jazeera:

“Trains have been stopped and other public transport will be as well,” he told the AFP news agency.

According to Sadi, around 10,000 police officers were coming into reinforce the 20,000 that blocked the last protest staged on January 22, when five people were killed and more than 800 hurt in clashes.

The latest rally is being organised by the National Co-ordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD), a three-week-old umbrella group of opposition parties, civil society movements and unofficial unions inspired by the mass protests in Tunisia and Egypt.

Demonstrators in the oil-rich nation have been protesting over the last few months against unemployment, high food costs, poor housing and corruption – similar issues that fuelled the uprisings in other north African nations.

At least 12 people have set themselves alight in protest against the government since January, four of those dying.

Earlier this month, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the president, said he would lift emergency powers, address unemployment and allow democratic marches to take place in the country, in a bid to stave off unrest.

However, protests in Algiers remain banned.

Läs hela inlägget

Den alltid lika underhållande Max Kaiser skapade en liten snackis bland ‘guldbaggarna’ på fredagen då han i en intervju med Alex Jones nämnde att han träffat den inom silverkretsar hjälteförklarade Andrew Maguire som påstod att han kommer att släppa ny ‘bombshell’ information inom två veckor.

Enligt Kaiser skall informationen vara tillräcklig för att förpassa folk till finkan. Vi får helt enkelt vänta och se. Ha bara inga stora förhoppningar om att Blythe Masters och Jamie Dimon skall skaka galler. Lär aldrig ske.

Den som mot alla odds behöver ytterligare bevis för att BLS manipulerar den amerikanska sysselsättningsstatistiken, trots den desperata justeringen av arbetskraften för att nå en arbetslöshet om 9% , bör kolla in diagrammet nedan och läsa kommentaren (via Zerohedge). Resultatet: Statistiken från BLS är helt meningslös.

What could possibly be the biggest tell in the BLS tendentious spin of data comes courtesy of the BLS “period 13″ data reporting, which is the full year adjustment the BLS gives at the end of every single year (it can be pulled from BLS data series CEU0000000001). And as John Poehling shows after parsing the data, in 72 years, there have been just 5 positive adjustments. And curiously, of these 5, the two largest ones by a huge margin occurred in the prior 2 years: 2008 and 2009, when year end adjustments (subsequently revised lower in the interim) added a total of 2.2 million jobs for the current administration. In 2010 there was no such luck, as the period 13 revision took out 1,243,000 jobs from the running total.

The bottom line: the average adjustments from 1939 to 2010 is a negative 1,447,000. So why does anyone put any faith in the BLS numbers again please? And a better question: why pretend any economic data matters any more? After all, everything ends up being crushed following final adjustments. As usual – the only thing that does matter, and has over the past 30 years, is how much free money can the Fed pump into the market. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

Rekommenderar att lyssna på vad David Stockman hade att säga om den löjeväckande amerikanska sysselsättningsstatistiken i förra veckan i denna CNBC-intervju (börjar ett par minuter in).

En del av er kanske kommer ihåg följande kommentar från Stockman i ett inlägg nyligen:

“Get some gold, beans, water, anything that Bernanke can’t destroy. Ron Paul is right. We’re entering a global monetary conflagration. If a sell-off of U.S. bonds starts, it will be an Armageddon.”

Här är en kommentar från Dave via sin blogg The Golden Truth:

David Stockman was the Director of the OMB during Reagan’s first term. Even back then he was known as a crusader against deficit spending and the accumulation of Government debt. My estimation of him was raised considerably when he recently was highly critical of Reagonomics and the extension of the Bush tax cuts: “We’re simply deferring massive taxes unfairly and immorally putting huge debt burdens on future generations and that is just wrong.” Stockman supported the tax cuts under Reagan, but ONLY if they were accompanied by a commensurate amount of spending cuts. They were not…

He was on CNBC Friday for his take on the jobs report: Re CNBC’s reporting on the employement report: “I heard more spin-control when I came out this morning than I ever heard in the White House.”

On the fraudulently constructed unemployment rate metric of 9%: “if we had the same [labor force] participation rate this January that we had a year ago…the unemployment rate reported this morning would have been 9.9% rather than 9…the 103.2mm jobs that were in the economy reported this morning is a number that was first reached in October 1999.” Thus there’s been no net job creation over the last 12 years.

And on the Fed money-printing policy: The Fed policy is (so) dangerous. They say they are printing money like there’s no tomorrow…to somehow stimulate jobs when it’s pretty clear that the only thing that’s happening is that all of these new high-powered reserves are flowing into the world economy creating the most vicious commodity hyperinflation”

Via ZeroHedge kan vi läsa följande smått otroliga historia om hur den holländska centralbanken tvingat en pensionsfond att göra sig av med större delen av sitt fysiska guld, med motiveringen att guld är en råvara och därmed är alldeles för volatil för att ingå i en pensionsfond.

ZeroHedge drar paralleller med Roosevelts, inom guldkretsar välkända, Executive Order 6102, som tvingade amerikaner att sälja sitt guld till amerikanska staten. Är det detta knep som centralbanker världen över kommer att ta till för att hålla ponzi spelet vid liv?

Here Comes Executive Order 6102 For The QE Generation: Dutch Central Bank Orders Pension Fund To Sell Its Gold

Perhaps the most stunning example of what may be in store for asset managers and pension funds (and possibly retail holders) who dare to challenge central bank monetary authority comes from the Netherlands, where we have just witnessed the 21st century equivalent of Executive Order 6102. The story in a nutshell (and as translated loosely from the primary source presented below): the glassworkers pension fund (SPVG) was ordered by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB, or the equivalent of the Dutch central bank), that it has to sell the bulk of its gold assets. After the SPVG refused to comply with the order, the DNB went to court and the decision has come out, siding with the central bank, ordering the SPVG to sell the required gold within two months. The pension fund, which invests for 1142 employees, in late 2009 had gold bars worth 34.6 million euros, or about 1400 kilograms. The total fund assets amounted to 288 million euros at that time. The DNB argued gold is a commodity and holding 13 percent was overweight in comparison to the 2.7% average that pension funds are invested in commodities.  DNB has found that such a large proportion of gold is inconsistent with the interests of the participants. SPVG sees gold as a medium of exchange, such as euros, but DNB believes that the price of gold fluctuates too much for it to be classified as an investment. Translation of the translation: the central bank has now directly ordered a fundhow to allocate its gold assets, because it explicitly disagreed with the fund’s statement that gold is money, claiming instead that it is nothing but a very volatile commodity. Very soon no pension funds in the Netherlands will be allowed to hold any amount of gold more than the merely nominal. This latest gold confiscation equivalent event is most certainly coming to a banana republic near you.

En anledning till den kraftiga nedgången för gruvbolagen som vi skrev om igår kan vara att CME planerar att ännu en gång höja marginalkraven för guld och silver. Vi vet sedan länge att hela finansmarknaden mer eller mindre är riggad och guld- och silvermarknaden är definitivt inget undantag. 

Om ny höjning av marginalkraven visar sig vara korrekt så är det högst troligt att en del insiders fick reda på detta redan igår och därför valde att ‘blanka skiten’ ur gruvbolagen, precis så som skedde förra gången.

Här är en kommentar (via Midas) från en person som är inne på just denna linje:

Just based on my own observations I suspect another margin increase is coming soon to the COMEX. And for sure if I am right then there are a few insiders that have been tipped off and are happily shorting the mining juniors ahead of the announcement. The open interest in the March contract is too big for the Cartel to stand by and not throw something in the mix to try and trip up the specs. My gut says batten down the hatches, this is going to be a volatile month.

Skall bli intressant att se vad som händer när Comex öppnar senare i eftermiddag. Just nu ser det ut som allt går enligt kartellens plan. Både guld och silver har redan backat, framförallt silver som är ned drygt 1,5% till 29,75.

De av er som följt guld- och silvermarknaden under ett antal år har säkert, precis som jag själv, noterat att guld- och silveraktier ofta faller kraftigt dagen innan ‘kartellen’ attackerar guld och silver.

Idag var en typisk sådan dag. Guld och silver började stiga, men uppgången stoppades brutalt samtidigt som guld- och silveraktier föll kraftigt trots att guld och silver bara backade en smula från tisdagen.

Det verkar som om Bill Murphy hade precis samma känsla om dagens utveckling. Det här är vad han hade att säga:

There is no doubt in my mind the HUI is used as a signal to allies of The Gold Cartel that the gold price is going down, either imminently as we saw this morning, or the next day. That is no over the top comment. Whistleblower Andrew Maguire said JP Morgan does something similar when it is going to attack the silver market … a signal that is meant to alert its selling allies to get on the case … done in a manner as to not leave email trails or allow the manipulation plan to be taped over the phone. It is what a fair amount of the lawsuits against Morgan are all about.

Det är givetvis ingen garanti att det kommer att bli en ‘kartellattack’ imorgon, men mycket talat för det. Utnyttja i så fall detta som ett ypperligt köptillfälle.