Breaking News
The Gloves are Coming Off
First a little bit of recent history. Readers are probably aware that some questions about the occasionally malfunctioning Deep State android… no, wait, we’ll start again. Questions have recently been raised about the health of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton by various “alt-right” tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists, such as this one.
The monsters are normally hiding under Hillary’s bed, but lately they have come out into the open and are getting way too many you-tube hits.
Dark Social Mood Tsunami Washes Ashore
Early this morning one might have been forgiven for thinking that Japan had probably just been hit by another tsunami. The Nikkei was down 1,300 points, the yen briefly soared above par. Gold had intermittently gained 100 smackers – if memory serves, the biggest nominal intra-day gain ever recorded (with the possible exception of one or two days in early 1980). Here is a picture of Haruhiko Kuroda in front of his Bloomberg monitor this morning:
This can’t be happening… please… let me wake up and realize that it was all just a bad dream…
Photo credit: Reuters
Another Vega Crush Target
Macy’s (M) may not be anyone’s favorite place to shop these days, but its volatility curve is set up nicely for a vega crush campaign. We’re going to look at two different ways to take advantage of M’s volatility term structure ahead of earnings (tomorrow morning before open).
Macy’s store of yore
Image via Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
Bizarre Monetary Experiment Expanded
As is well known by now, the ECB Council has decided to expand its bizarre monetary experiment further. All users of the euro are to be subjected to additional impoverishment, by means of the ECB lengthening the duration of its outright money printing scheme (while keeping its level steady at what is an already stunning €60 billion per month) and the even more absurd decision to lower its deposit facility interest rate further, to minus 30 basis points.
ECB chief Mario Draghi, who increasingly looks like something that has risen from the Crypt. US high IQ moron export Larry Summers likes his policies. Any more questions?
Photo credit: Michael Probst / AP
A Strange Event
The topic of the SU-24 Russian plane shot down by Turkey over the weekend in Syria has been discussed all over the media ad nauseam by now, but we want to add a few observations and suggestions of our own. Some have perhaps not received the attention they possibly deserve.
Image of Russian jet shortly after it was hit by a Turkish missile. Luckily someone was promptly at hand to make a qualitatively acceptable video of the incident. As is well known, cameramen just waiting to film every remotely interesting activity are standing by all over Syria, which is why we get so much material about what is really happening there.
Photo credit: DPA
The Successes of the Global War on Terror
One would think that the so-called “Global War on Terror”, which has been given fresh impetus by the Paris attacks, must be going swimmingly. What else could explain the great enthusiasm with which it is pursued? It may be recalled that it started in earnest after the WTC attack – also a declaration of war, as it was put at the time.
As is often the case when Islamist fundamentalists strike, the actual attackers immolated themselves on occasion of the attack itself, making it impossible to exact retribution. Except by proxy, that is. This was playing right into the hands of those who had planned the attacks. It seems to us that they have ultimately succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Not to put too fine a point to it, our wise political leaders have evidently been outfoxed by a bunch of turbaned cave dwellers and goat buggerers in the Hindu Kush.
Steve Bell on the reaction to the Paris attacks.
Venezuela: Real Wages Collapse amid Continuing Crack-Up Boom
While the crack-up boom in Venezuela continues, real wages in the country have have utterly collapsed. The bolivar is still trading close to 700 to the US dollar on the black market, and the Caracas stock index keeps making new all time highs in nominal terms almost every day. Ironically, Venezuela’s currency is called the “bolivar fuerte” (VEF), i.e. “the strong bolivar” ever since it has been “reverse split” 1 for 1,000 in January 2008.
Image via designlimbo.com
Latest Developments
Alexis Tsipras has sent a letter to Jeroen Dijsselbloem of the euro-group (you can download the letter here, pdf), in which he requests a separate bailout from the ESM, essentially proposing that the ESM take over Greece’s liabilities for a period of two years. Unsaid, but implied, is that this would result in the referendum being recalled. More likely it is just a ploy to enhance Syriza’s chances of obtaining a “no” vote in the referendum.
Image via dreamstime.com
Tsipras Takes Door Number Three
Late last week, Greece’s creditors offered a bailout extension of several months, in the course of which Greece would have received sufficient funding to make all payments due during this time period. In order to receive this package the Greek government would have had to sign a final offer made by the creditors. If one looks at the details of the negotiations, only a tiny difference remained between the Greek offer and the offer made by the creditors in the end, reportedly amounting to approximately €100 million. This makes the Mr. Tsipras’ assertion that the final offer tabled by the creditors was an “affront to Greek dignity” not especially credible. It should be noted in this context that these arithmetic games are complete nonsense anyway. In light of €360 billion of public debt, does anyone really believe it will make an iota of difference whether the retirement age in Greece is increased in 2022 or 2025, or whether the small VAT exception for the tourism industry is revoked or not? We believe there are far more important reforms Greece needs to implement.
In the meanwhile, somewhere in Athens …
Photo via allaksogolies.gr
GDP Now in Dangerous Waters
The Atlanta Fed has posted today that its GDP Now measure has reached exactly the same level as a certain Mr. John Blutarsky’s mid-term grade average. This is to say, it has declined to 0.0%.
GDP Now goes Blutarsky – via Atlanta FED
Game of Chicken Continues, EU Ratchets Up Pressure on Greece
After the ECB has made Greek debt no longer eligible for repos (note that this mainly concerns government bonds however, bank bonds that have been “guaranteed” by the government will however no longer be eligible after February 28 2015 either – these amount to a quite large € 25 billion), fears of an intensifying bank run in Greece are growing. At the end of December, Greek banks owed about € 56 billion to the euro system. This is estimated to have jumped to about € 70 billion since then.
These debts to the system have grown concurrently with a sharp decline in deposit liabilities since November last year, when it dawned on people that there might be an election. Unfortunately more up-to-date data aren’t available as of yet, but we will try to post them as soon as the Bank of Greece makes them available. However, there exist estimates regarding the extent of the decline in deposits since the end of December as well – very likely an additional € 15 billion has fled from the Greek banking system since then.
Photo credit: Pressmaster via Shutterstock
Oil Prices, Deflationary Pressures, Bonds and Gold
The transcript of the Incrementum Fund’s fourth advisory board discussion is available for download below. The fund is managed by Ronald-Peter Stoeferle (formerly of Erste Bank, author of the annual “In Gold We Trust” report) and Mark J. Valek, employing a strategy focused on the effects of monetary policy on asset prices, with the help of proprietary indicators based on the monetary theory of the Austrian School of Economics. Here is Ronald’s brief summary of the discussion:
“The main topic of the discussion was the increasing deflationary pressure and its consequences on markets and central bank policy. We discussed the consequences of collapsing oil prices, a potential case for new all-time highs in treasury bonds, the impeding currency wars and the consequences for gold. As readers of our previous Advisory Board transcripts may remember, we already discussed the possibility of another round of quantitative easing in the US in our last advisory board meeting. It seems, as if the odds of such an event have increased since then, but generally still are considered as a highly improbable event by most market participants.
Perhaps the whole discussion can be accompanied by this quote by the great Ludwig von Mises: “No very deep knowledge of economics is usually needed for grasping the immediate effects of a measure; but the task of economics is to foretell the remoter effects, and so to allow us to avoid such acts as attempt to remedy a present ill by sowing the seeds of a much greater ill for the future.”
Ludwig von Mises, who first came to the world’s attention in 1912, as an eminent European monetary theorist with the publication of “The Theory of Money and Credit”
Photo via mises.ca
Most read in the last 20 days:
Is the Fed Secretly Bailing Out a Major Bank?
Prettifying Toxic Waste The promise of something for nothing is always an enticing proposition. Who doesn’t want roses without thorns, rainbows without rain, and salvation without repentance? So, too, who doesn’t want a few extra basis points of yield above the 10-year Treasury note at no added risk? The yield-chasing hamster wheel... [PT] Thus, smart fellows go after it; pursuing financial innovation with unyielding devotion. The underlying...
Japan's Yield Curve Control Regime is Coming to America
Monetary Lunacy, Nipponese Version Earlier this month, Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda commented that Japan’s central planners are considering a 50-year government bond issue as a long-term means of putting a floor under super-long interest rates. How this floor would be placed is extremely suspect; we will have more on this in a moment. But first, the dual benefits – according to Japan’s central planners... Kuroda-san: the man with a plan, or...
Gold, Togas and Very Fine Suits - Precious Metals Supply and Demand
Yields and the “Everything Bubble” Last week the price of gold was up $9, and the price of silver was up $0.18. This week, our thought turns to a cherished old saw. Gold bugs often tell us that the purchasing power of gold is constant. An ounce of gold could have purchased, they say, a fine toga in Roman times. Just as it could buy a fine suit today. This magnificent toga will set you back an ounce, pilgrim. Just think of the impression you'll make....- Repo Market, QE4 (a.k.a. Not QE), the Fed and Gold
Incrementum Advisory Board Discussion of 23 Oct 2019 In late October the Advisory Board of the Incrementum Fund held its quarterly meeting (a transcript is available for download at the end of this post). This time the board was joined by special guest Dan Oliver, the manager of Myrmikan Capital and president of the Committee for Monetary Research & Education. Myrmikan inter alia publishes excellent and quite original research on gold which we hereby highly...
Eating the Seed Corn - Precious Metals Supply and Demand
Misguided Incentives The price of gold subsided a few bucks, and the price of silver blipped a few pennies. Not much action last week, groceries neither pumped into nor drained out of this asset class. Those who look to exchange capital goods for groceries need to find a different asset. The best-laid plans... [PT] Not even the S&P 500 Index provided a gain in groceries this week. It certainly wasn’t the much-vaunted store of groceries, Bitcoin, which...
The Credit Market Powder Keg
Credit Market Bifurcation By all accounts, credit markets remain on fire. 2019 is already a record year for corporate bond issuance, beating the previous record set in 2017 by a sizable margin. Demand for the debt of governments and government-related issuers remains extremely strong as well, despite non-existent and often even negative issuance yields. Even now, with economic activity clearly slowing and numerous threats to the post-GFC recovery looming on the horizon, the occasional...
The Fed’s Answer to the Ghastly Monster of its Creation
The Bubble Machine The launch angle of the U.S. stock market over the past decade has been steep and relentless. The S&P 500, after bottoming out at 666 on March 6, 2009, has rocketed up over 370 percent. New highs continue to be reached practically every day. S&P 500 weekly, since the low of 2009. A party of roaring 20s proportion in terms of duration, extent and end point valuations (a post-war inflation episode triggered a devastating bear market from November...
Gold Moves from Vault A to Vault B - Precious Metals Supply and Demand
Poland's Gold and the Conspiracy Theorists The price of gold was up enough to buy a bottle of Two Buck Chuck wine, and the price of silver was up enough to buy a wooden nickel (well, not enough to buy a real nickel nickel). Poland's gold bars are packaged by employees of G4S International Logistics to be transported from London to Poland. Poland's gold was originally transferred to London at the beginning of WW II, when Stalin and Hitler invaded and partitioned the country...
Austrian Theory and Investment
Realtime Charts
Gold in USD:
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
Gold in EUR:
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_euoz_2.gif)
Silver in USD:
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)
Platinum in USD:
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/platinum/t24_pt_en_usoz_2.gif)
USD - Index:
![[Most Recent USD from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)
