Tag Archives: financial crisis

Sleepwalking Toward A Crisis – Got Gold?

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , ,

“By sticking to the new orthodoxy of monetary policy and pretending that we have made the banking system safe, we are sleepwalking towards that crisis.” – Mervyn King, former head of the Bank of England in a lecture at the IMF’s recent annual meeting

The market levitates higher on phony economic data from the Government, Trump tweets, Fed money printing and hedge fund algorithms chasing headline and twitter sound bites. Currently the stock market, dulled by money printing and official interventions, could care less about economic reality and rising global systemic geopolitical and financial risk. Corporate headline earnings “beats” are considered bullish even if the earnings declined YoY or sequentially.

But for those who don’t have their head in the sand, clinging desperately to the “hope” offered by the misdirecting Orwellian propaganda, it’s difficult to ignore the message signaled by the legendary levels of insider selling.

Someone is not telling the truth – The Fed once again last week increased the size of both the overnight and “term” repo operations. Starting Thursday (Oct 24th) the overnight repos were increased from $75 billion to “at least” $120 billion and the term repos (2 week term) of “at least” $35 billion were extended to the end of November, with two “at least $45 billion” term repos thrown in for good measure. The Fed is also outright printing helicopter money for the banks at a rate of $60 billion per month (via “T-bill POMOs).

At the height of the last QE/money printing cycle, the Fed was doing $75 billion per month. So whatever the problem is behind the curtain, it’s already as large or larger than the 2008 crisis.

That escalated quickly – When the repo operations started in September, the Fed attributed the need to “relieve funding pressures.” At the time the public was fed the fairytale that corporations were pulling funds from money market funds to pay quarter-end taxes. Well, we’re over five weeks past that event and the repo operations have escalated in size and duration three times. Someone is not telling the truth…

The rapid increase in Fed money printing in just five weeks reflects serious problems developing in the global financial system. Actually, the problem is easy to identify:   At every level – government, corporate and household – the level of debt has become unsustainable, with not insignificant portions of that debt in non-performing status (seriously delinquent or in default). Thus, the Central Banks have had to resort to money printing to help the banks manage the rising level of distress on their balance sheet and to monetize the escalating rate of Treasury debt issuance.

The quote at the beginning is from the former head of the Bank of England, Mervyn King. King is warning that the global financial system is headed toward a crisis and that money printing ultimately won’t save it.  While it’s pretty obvious that a disaster waits on the horizon, when the former head of a big Central Bank delivers a message like that instead of Orwellian gobbledygook, the world should pay heed.  I would suggest that the Fed’s money printing signals that the risk of a crisis intensifies weekly.  Got Gold?

The Flight To Safety In Gold – A Conversation With The Prepared Mind – Part 1

Financial Markets, Gold, Housing Market, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , ,

The Chinese have been slowly trading out of their U.S. dollar exposure and converting it to gold. Something a lot of analysts don’t pay attention to because they don’t even know what the facts are [with regard to the actual amount of physical gold held by China] when they look at China and proclaim that China has a debt problem.  Sure, China has a fiat currency-derived debt problem but it’s nowhere near as bad as the U.S. fiat currency-derived debt problem. And guess what? On the other side of the paper debt China has 25,000-35,000 tonnes of physical gold they’ve hoarded over decades.

The Prepared Mind invited to its podcast to discuss a wide range of issues from precious metals to geopolitical problems. Here’s Part 1:

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“Dave mate. You’re making me rich. I don’t know what’s going on with Gold Fields but they’ve spiked up 33% and my calls are going ballistic.” – Mining Stock Journal subscriber in Australia

The Yield Curve Is The Economy’s Canary In A Coal Mine

Financial Markets, Gold, Housing Market, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , , , ,

The economy has hit a wall and is now sliding down it. I don’t care what bullish propaganda may or may not be bubbling up in the headlines from the financial media and Wall Street, the hard numbers I look at everyday show accelerating economic weakness. The fact that my view is contrary to mainstream consensus and political propaganda reinforces my conviction that my view about the economy is correct.

As an example of the ongoing underlying systemic decay and collapse conveyed by this week’s title, it was announced that General Electric would be removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average index and replaced by Walgreen’s. GE was an original member of the index starting in 1896 and was a continuous member since  1907.

GE is an original equipment manufacturer and industrial product innovator. It’s products are used in broad array of applications at all levels of the economy globally.  It is considered a “GDP company.” GE was iconic of American innovation and economic dominance. Walgreen’s is a consumer products reseller that sells pharmaceuticals and junk. Emblematic of the entire system, GE has suffocated itself with poor management which guided the company into a cess-pool of financial leverage and hidden derivatives.

As expressed in past issues (the Short Seller’s Journal), I don’t put a lot of stock in the regional Fed economic surveys, which are heavily shaded by “hope” and “expectation” metrics that are used to inflate the overall index level. These are so-called “soft” data reports. But now even the “outlook” and “expectations” measurements are falling quickly (see last week’s Philly Fed report). The Trump “hope premium” that inflated the stock market starting in November 2016 has left the building.

Something wicked this way comes:  Notwithstanding mainstream media rationalizations to the contrary, a flattening of the yield curve always always always precedes a contraction in economic activity (aka “a recession”). Always. Don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. An “inverted” yield curve occurs when short term yields exceed long term yields. When the yield curve inverts, it means something wicked is going to hit the financial and economic system.

Prior to the financial crisis in 2008, the yield curve was inverted for short periods of time during 2007. The most simple explanation for why inversion occurs is that performance-driven capital flows from riskier investments into the the longer end of the Treasury curve, driving the yield on the long end below the short end. The expectation is that the Fed will be forced to cut short term rates drastically – thereby driving the short-end lower, which in turn pulls the entire yield curve lower (the yield curve “shifts” down). This gives investors in the long-end a better rate-of-return performance on their capital than holding short term Treasuries for safety. The Fed’s dilemma will be complicated by the fact that it does not have much room to cut rates in order to combat a deep recession.

Studies have shown that curve inversions precede a recession anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. I would argue that, stripping away the affects of inflation and data manipulation, real economic activity has been somewhat recessionary for several years. The massive intervention in the Treasury market by the Fed, ECB and Bank of Japan has muted the true price discovery mechanism of the Treasury curve. The curve has been barely upward sloping for quite some time relative to history.  This could indeed be history’s equivalent of an inverted curve. That being the case, if an inversion occurs despite the Fed’s attempts to prevent it, it means that whatever is going to hit the U.S. and global financial and economic system is going to be worse than what occurred in 2008.

A note on gold and silver: The massive take-down in the price of gold and silver, which is occurring primarily during the trading hours of the LBMA and the Comex – both of which are paper derivative markets – is quite similar to the take-down that occurred in the metals preceding the collapse of Bear and Lehman in 2008. It is imperative that the price of gold’s function as a warning signal is de-fused in order to keep the public wallowing in ignorance – just like in 2008.  But keep an eye on the stock prices of Deutsche Bank, Goldman and Morgan Stanley – as well as the Treasury yield curve…

Economic, Financial And Political Fundamentals Continue To Deteriorate

Financial Markets, Gold, Housing Market, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , , ,

I’ve been writing about the rising consumer debt delinquency and default rates for a few months.  The “officially tabulated” mainstream b.s. reports are not picking up the numbers, but the large credit card issuers (like Capital One) and auto debt issuers (like Santander Consumer USA) have been showing a dramatic rise in troubled credit card and auto debt loans for several quarters, especially in the sub-prime segment which is now, arguably the majority of consumer debt issuance at the margin.  The rate of mortgage payment delinquencies is also beginning to tick up.

Silver Doctor’s Elijah Johnson invited me onto his podcast show to discuss the factors that are contributing to the deteriorating fundamentals in the economy and financial system, which is translating into rising instability in the stock market:

If you are interested in learning more about my subscription services, please follow these link: Mining Stock Journal / Short Seller’s Journal. The next Mining Stock Journal will be released tomorrow evening and I’ll be presenting a junior mining stock that has taken down over 57% since late January and why I believe, after chatting with the CEO, this stock could easily triple before the end of the year.

“Thanks so much. It was a pleasure dealing with you. Service is excellent” – recent subscriber feedback.

2008 Redux-Cubed (at least cubed)?

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There is plenty of dysfunction in plain sight to suggest that the financial markets can’t bear the strain of unreality anymore. Between the burgeoning trade wars and the adoption in congress this week of a fiscally suicidal spending bill, you’d want to put your fingers in your ears to not be deafened by the roar of markets tumbling – James Kuntsler, “The Unspooling”

Many of you have likely seen discussions in the media about the LIBOR-OIS spread. This spread is a measure of banking system health. It was one of Alan Greenspan’s favorite benchmark indicators of systemic liquidity. LIBOR is the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate, which is the benchmark interest rate at which banks lend to other banks. The most common intervals are 1-month and 3-month. LIBOR is the most widely used reference rate globally and is commonly used as the benchmark from which bank loans, bonds and interest rate derivatives are priced. “OIS” is an the “overnight indexed swap” rate. This is an overnight inter-bank lending benchmark index – most simply, it’s the global overnight inter-bank lending rate.

The current 1-month LIBOR-OIS spread has spiked up from 10 basis points at the beginning of 2018 to nearly 60 basis points (0.60%). Many Wall Street Einsteins are rationalizing that the LIBOR-OIS spread blow-out is a result of U.S. companies repatriating off-shore cash back to the U.S. But it doesn’t matter. That particular pool of cash was there only to avoid repatriation taxes. The cash being removed from the European banking system by U.S corporations will not be replaced. The large pool of dollar liquidity being removed was simply masking underlying problems – problems rising to the surface now that the dollar liquidity is drying up.

Keep in mind that the effect of potential financial crisis trigger events as reflected by the LIBOR-OIS spread since 2009 has been hugely muted by trillions in QE, which have kept the banking system liquefied artificially. Think of this massive liquidity as having the effect of acting like a “pain killer” on systemic problems percolating like a cancer beneath the surface. The global banking system is addicted to these financial “opioids” and now these opioids are no longer working.

Before the 2008 crisis, the spread began to rise in August 2007, when it jumped from 10 basis points to 100 basis points by the end of September. From there it bounced around between 50-100 basis points until early September 2008, when it shot straight up to 350 basis points. Note that whatever caused the spread to widen in August 2007 was signaling a systemic financial problem well in advance of the actual trigger events. That also corresponds with the time period in which the stock market peaked in 2007.

What hidden financial bombs are lurking behind the curtain? There’s no way to know the answer to this until the event actually occurs. But the market action in the banks – and in Deutsche Bank specifically – could be an indicator that some ugly event is percolating in the banking system, not that this should surprise anyone.

The likely culprit causing the LIBOR-OIS spread is leveraged lending. Bank loans to companies that are rated by Moody’s/S&P 500 to be mid-investment grade to junk use banks loans that are tied to LIBOR. The rise in LIBOR since May 2017 has imposed increasing financial stress on the ability of leveraged companies to make debt payments.

But also keep in mind that there are derivatives – interest rate swaps and credit default swaps – that based on these leveraged loans. These “weapons of mass financial destruction” (Warren Buffet) are issued in notional amounts that are several multiples of the outstanding amount of underlying debt. It’s a giant casino game in which banks and hedge funds place bets on whether or not leveraged companies eventually default.

I believe this is a key “hidden” factor that is forcing the LIBOR-OIS spread to widen. This theory is manifest in the performance of Deutsche Bank’s stock:

DB’s stock price has plunged 33.8% since the beginning of January 2018. It’s dropped 11.3% in just the last three trading days (thru March 23rd). There’s a big problem behind the “curtain” at Deutsche Bank. I have the advantage of informational tidbits gleaned by a close friend of mine from our Bankers Trust days who keeps in touch with insiders at DB. DB is a mess.

DB, ever since closing its acquisition of Bankers Trust in the spring of 2000, has become the leading and, by far, the most aggressive player in the global derivatives market. During the run-up in the alternative energy mania, DB was aggressively underwriting exotic derivatives based on the massive debt being issued by energy companies. It also has been one of the most aggressive players in underwriting credit default swaps on the catastrophically leveraged EU countries like Italy and Spain.

DB is desperate to raise liquidity. Perhaps its only reliable income-generating asset is its asset management division. In order to raise needed funds, DB was forced to sell 22.3% of it to the public in a stock deal that raised US$8 billion. It was originally trying to price the deal to raise US$10 billion. But the market smells blood and DB is becoming radioactive. The deal was floated Thursday (March 22nd) and DB stock still dropped 7% on Thursday and Friday.

Several U.S. banks are not far behind in the spectrum of financial stress. Citigroup’s stock has declined 15.1% since January 29th, including a 7.5% loss Thursday/Friday. Morgan Stanley has lost 11.8% since March 12th, including an 8.8% dive Thursday/Friday. Goldman Sachs’ stock has dumped 11% since March 12th, including a 6.3% drop on Thursday/Friday. JP Morgan dumped 6.7% the last two trading days this past week (thru March 23rd).

If Deutsche Bank collapses, it will set off a catastrophic chain reaction of counter-party defaults. This would be similar to what occurred in 2008 when AIG defaulted on counter-party derivative liabilities in which Goldman Sachs was the counter-party. While it’s impossible to prove without access to the inside books at DB and at the ECB, I believe the primary driver behind the LIBOR-OIS rate spread reflects a growing reluctance by banks to lend to other banks for a duration longer than overnight. This reluctance is derived from growing fear of DB’s deteriorating financial condition, as reflected by its stock price.

The commentary above is from last week’s issue of the Short Seller’s Journal. In addition to well-researched insight into the financial system, the SSJ presents short-sell ideas each week, including ideas for using options. This week’s issue, just published, discusses why Tesla is going to zero and how to take advantage of that melt-down. You can find out more about this service here: Short Seller’s Journal information.

Gold, A Banking Collapse And Cryptocurrencies

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , ,

“We believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will be limited and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system,” – Fed Chairman, Ben Beranke – May 17, 2007.

“You know probably that would be going too far but I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be.” – Fed “Chairman,” Janet Yellen – June 27, 2017

Hmmm…

New Home Sales Plunge 11.4% In April

Financial Markets, Housing Market, Market Manipulation, U.S. Economy, , , ,

So much for the jump in the builder’s confidence index reported last week.  The Government reported a literal plunge in new home sales in April.   Not only did the seasonally manipulated adjusted annualized sales rate drop 11.4% from March, it was 6% below Wall Street’s consensus estimate.

Analysts and perma-bulls were scratching their head after the housing starts report showed an unexpected drop last week after a “bullish” builder’s sentiment report the prior day.

The Housing Market index, which used to be called the Builder Sentiment index, registered a 70 reading, 2 points above the prior month’s reading and 2 points above the expected reading (68). The funny thing about this “sentiment” index is that it is often followed the next day by a negative housing starts report.  Always follow the money to get to the truth. The housing starts report released last Tuesday showed an unexpected 2.6% drop in April. This was below the expected increase of 6.7% and follows a 6.6% drop in March. Starts have dropped now in 3 of the last 4 months. So much for the high reading in builder sentiment.

This is the seasonal period of the year when starts should be at their highest. I would suggest that there’s a few factors affecting the declining rate at which builders are starting new single-family and multi-family homes.

First, the 2-month decline in housing starts and permits reflects new homebuilders’ true expectations about the housing market because starts and permits require spending money vs. answering questions on how they feel about the market.  Housing starts are dropping because homebuilders are sensing an underlying weakness in the market for new homes. Let me explain.

Most of the housing sale activity is occurring in the under $500k price segment, where flippers represent a fairly high proportion of the activity. When a flipper completes a successful round-trip trade, the sale shows up twice in statistics even though only one trade occurred to an end-user. The existing home sales number is thus overstated to the extent that a certain percentage of sales are flips. The true “organic” rate of homes sales – “organic” defined as a purchase by an actual end-user (owner/occupant) of the home – is occurring at a much lower rate than is reflected in the NAR’s numbers.

Although the average price of a new construction home is slightly under $400k, the flippers do not generally play with new homes because it’s harder to mark-up the price of a new home when there’s 15 identical homes in a community offered at the builder’s price. Flippers do buy into pre-constructed condominiums but they need the building sell-out in order to flip at a profit. Many of these “investors” are now stuck with condo purchases on Miami and New York that are declining in value by the day. The same dynamic will spread across the country. Because flipper purchases are not part of the new home sales market, homebuilders are feeling the actual underlying structural market weakness in the housing market that is not yet apparent in the existing home sales market, specifically in the under $500k segment. This structure weakness is attributable to the fact that pool of potential homebuyers who can meet the low-bar test of the latest FNM/FRE quasi-subprime taxpayer-backed mortgage programs has largely dried up.

Second, in breaking down the builder sentiment metric, “foot-traffic” was running 25 points below the trailing sales rate metric (51 on the foot-traffic vs. 76 on the “current sales” components of the index) In other words, potential future sales are expected to be lower than the trailing run-rate in sales. This reinforces the analysis above. It also fits my thesis that the available “pool” of potential “end-user” buyers has been largely tapped. This is why builders are starting less home and multi-family units. The only way the Government/Fed can hope to “juice” the demand for homes will be to further interfere in the market and figure out a mortgage program that will enable no down payment, interest-only mortgages to people with poor credit, which is why the Government is looking at allowing millennials to take out 125-130% loan to value mortgages with your money.  We saw how well that worked in 2008.

Finally, starts for both single-family and multi-family units have been dropping. The multi-family start decline is easy to figure out. Most large metropolitan areas have been flooded with new multi-family facilities and even more are being built. I see this all around the metro-Denver area and I’ve been getting subscriber emails describing the same condition around the country. Here’s how the dynamic will play out, again just like in the 2007-2010 period. The extreme oversupply of apartments and condos will force drastic drops in rent and asking prices for new apartments and condos to the point at which it will be much cheaper to rent than to buy. This in turn will reduce rents on single-family homes, which will reduce the amount an investor/flipper is willing to pay for an existing home. Moreover, it will greatly reduce the “organic” demand for single-family homes, as potential buyers opt to rent rather than take on a big mortgage. All of a sudden there’s a big oversupply of existing homes on the market.

The quintessential example of this is NYC. I have been detailing the rabid oversupply of commercial and multi-family properties in NYC in past issues. The dollar-value of property sales in NYC in Q1 2017 plummeted 58% compared to Q1 2016. It was the lowest sales volume in six years in NYC. Nationwide, property sales dropped 18% in Q1 according Real Capital Analytics. According to an article published by Bloomberg News, landlords are cutting rents and condo prices and lenders are pulling back capital. Again, this is just like the 2007-2008 period in NYC and I expect this dynamic to spread across the country over the next 3-6 months.

This is exactly what happened in 2008 as the financial crisis was hitting. I would suggest that we’re on the cusp of this scenario repeating. Mortgage applications (refi and purchase) have declined in 6 out of the last 9 weeks, including a 2.7% drop in purchase mortgages last week. Please note: this is the seasonal portion of the year in which mortgage purchase applications should be rising every week.

The generally misunderstood nature of housing oversupply is that it happens gradually and then all at once. That’s how the market for “illiquid” assets tends to behave (homes, exotic-asset backed securities, low-quality junk bonds, muni bonds, etc). The housing market tends to go from “very easy to sell a home” to “very easy to buy a home.” You do not want to have just signed a contract when homes are “easy to buy” because the next house on your block is going to sell for a lot lower than the amount you just paid. But you do want to be short homebuilders when homes become “very easy to buy.”

The above analysis is an excerpt from the latest Short Seller’s Journal.  My subscribers are making money shorting stocks in selected sectors which have been diverging negatively from the Dow/S&P 500 for quite some time.  One example is Ralph Lauren (RL), recommended as short last August at $108.  It’s trading now at $67.71, down 59.% in less than a year.  You can find out more about subscribing here:  Short Seller’s Journal information.

The Foundation Of The Stock Market Is Crumbling

Financial Markets, Housing Market, Market Manipulation, U.S. Economy, ,

The S&P 500 and Dow have gone nowhere since March 1st. The SPX had been bumping its head on 2400 until Wednesday. The Dow and the SPX have been levitating on the backs of five tech stocks: AAPL, AMZN, FB, GOOG and MSFT. AAPL alone is responsible for 25% of the Dow’s YTD gain and 13% of the SPX’s.  Connected to this, the tech sector in general has bubbled up like Dutch Tulips in the mid-1630’s. The Nasdaq hit an all-time high (6,169) on Tuesday.

But, as this next chart shows, despite a handful of stocks trying to rain on the bears’ parade, there’s plenty of stocks that have been selling off:

The chart above shows the S&P 500 vs the SOX (semiconductor index), XRT (retail index), IBM and Ford since the election. The SOX index was used to represent the tech sector. You can see that, similar to the culmination of the 1999-early 2000 stock bubble, the tech stocks are bubbling up like a geyser. IBM is a tech company but its operations are diversified enough to reflect the general business activity occurring across corporate America and in the overall economy. The retail sector has been getting hit hard, reflecting the general decay in financials of the average middle class household. And Ford’s stock reflects the general deterioration in U.S. manufacturing and profitability. Anyone who believes that the unemployment rate is truly 4.4% and that the economy is doing well needs to explain the relative stock performance of the retail sector, IBM and F.

Despite the levitation of the SPX and Dow, the “hope helium” that has inflated the stock bubble since the election has been leaking out since January 1st. While many stocks in NYSE are either below their 200 dma or testing 52 week lows, the price action of the U.S. dollar index best reflects the inflation and deflation of the Trump “hope bubble:”

I’ve always looked at the U.S. dollar as a “stock” that represents the U.S. political, financial and economic system. As you can see, U.S.A.’s stock went parabolic after the election until December 31st. Since that time, it’s deflated back down to below its trading level on election day. This has also been the fate of the average stock that trades on the NYSE. In fact, as of Friday’s close, 55% of the stocks on NYSE are below their 200 day moving average. Nearly 62% of all NYSE stocks are below their 50 dma. Just 4.37% of S&P 500 stocks are at 52-wk highs despite the fact that the SPX hit a new all-time high of 2402 on Tuesday. These statistics give you an idea of how narrow the move higher in the stock market has been, as the average stock in the NYSE/SPX/Dow indices is diverging negatively from the respective indices. The foundation of the stock market is crumbling.

The above analysis was a portion of the latest Short Seller’s Journal released last night. SSJ recommended shorting IBM in the April 23rd issue at $160.  It’s down 4.6% since then. The primary short idea presented in the latest issue was down 2.3% today despite the .5% rise in the SPX.  This idea is a stock trading in the mid-teens that will likely be under $5 within a year.  You can find out more about the Short Seller’s Journal here:  LINK

Is Gold Signaling The Next Financial Crisis?

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, , , , ,

Gold and silver have been sold down pretty hard since April 18th. But the structure of the weekly Commitment of Traders report, which shows the long and short positions of the various trader classifications (banks, hedgers, hedge funds, other large investment funds, retail) had been flashing a short term sell signal for the last few weeks. The net short position of the Comex banks and the net long position of the hedge funds had reached relatively high levels. Except Thursday (May 4th), almost all of the price decline action was occurring after the London p.m. gold fix and during the Comex floor trading hours, exclusively. This tells us all we need to know about the nature of the selling, especially given the enormous amount of physical gold currently being accumulated by the usual eastern hemisphere countries. The table to the right  calculates the Comex banks’ paper gold positioning going back to 2005.  As you can see, currently the net short position and the net short position as a percent of total open interest has reached a relatively high level. This typically happens when the banks engage in raiding the Comex by unloading massive quantities of paper gold in bursts in order to trigger hedge fund stop-loss selling. It serves the dual purpose of pushing down the price of gold and providing a relatively riskless source of profits for the banks.

This is the cycle that has repeated numerous times per year since 2001. This time, however, more than any other time since 2001, the sell-off in the price of gold is counter-intuitive to the collapsing financial and economic condition of the United States, specifically, and the entire world in general. The likely reason for the current price take-down of gold is an attempt by the elitists to remove the batteries from the “fire alarm” mechanism embedded in a rising price of gold. An alarm that lets the populace know that there’s a big problem that will hit the system sooner or later; an alarm that lets the public know systemic failure is beyond Government and Central Bank Control.

A similar manipulated take-down of the price of gold and silver occurred in the spring of 2008, ahead of the great financial crisis. Gold was pushed down to $750 from $1050 and silver was taken down from $20 to $10. This price decline was counter-intuitive to the collapsing financial condition of the U.S. financial system, which had become obvious to anyone not blinded by the official propaganda at the time. Of course, after the financial collapse occurred and was addressed with money printing, the price of gold ran up to an all-time high.

It’s likely that a similar situation is taking place now. Only this time around all “assets” are in price-bubbles fomented by record levels of fiat money creation and the interminable expansion of credit. The debt portion of this equation is getting ready to hit the wall, the only question is timing. This explains the parabolic move in the price of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is nearly impossible to manipulate. Once the western Central Banks lose the ability to manipulate the price of gold in the derivatives markets, the price of gold and silver will go on their own parabolic price journey – one that will leave the price of Bitcoin in the rear view mirror.

If you are interested in getting unique, insightful gold/silver market analysis and mining stock investment ideas ahead of the market, subscribe to the Mining Stock Journal.  You can get more information about this here:  MSJ subscription info.

Gold & Silver Slammed At Comex Open: Something Bad Is Coming

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , ,

This is starting to smell a lot like 2008.  By nearly all private sector reported economic data series, the economy is starting to tank hard.  Just today the employment component index of the NY ISM manufacturing report plunged at its fastest pace in history and hit a 7-yr low.  A bevy of private sector reports yesterday showed similar trends.  Most notably construction spending fell in August – vs. a .7% gain expected.  It was the second month in row construction spending declined after a big downward revision pushed July into a decline vs. June.  Construction spending is now contracting for the first time in 5 years.

But there’s an even bigger problem to throw in the mix.  It’s called “Deutshce Bank.” Despite inexorable pleas to the market by CEO, John Cryan, DB is exhibiting ALL of the characteristics displayed by Lehman in the months leading up to Lehman’s collapse.  If DB were forced to undergo an independent – and by independent I mean non-Central Bank, impartial outside third party – audit and a bona fide mark to market of its off-balance sheet “assets,” the bank would be catastrophically insolvent.  As it is now, the stock market values DB stock at just 26% of DB’s stated “book value.”  It’s true book value is likely negative by at least few $100 billion.

Just for the record, I did “back-of-the-envelope” mark to market analysis on the balance sheets of Lehman, JP Morgan, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo at the beginning of 2008.  This was before I had a blog but I had shared my work with Bill “Midas” Murphy’s Le Metropole Cafe.  My work showed that each one of those banks were hopelessly insolvent if accurate mark-to-market accounting would have been enforced on those banks by the regulators.  Wash Mutual and Lehman collapsed that year.  JP Morgan and Wells Fargo also would have collapsed if the Government had not ripped over $800 billion away from taxpayers and gave it to the big Wall Street banks plus Warren Buffet’s bank.

Deutsche Bank is at least as underwater as each of those banks – and probably more underwater than Lehman and Wash Mutual combined.   If the western Central Banks can’t find all of the hidden skeletons in DB’s derivatives closet and clandestinely monetize them, DB will collapse.

Gold is being taken down just like it was in 2008 ahead of some type of systemic disaster coming at us.  Gold hit $1020 in March 2008 just as Bear Stearns was collapsing.  It was taken down even more during the summer, ahead of Lehman’s collapse.  These events should have pushed gold over $2000 back then.  Gold eventually almost did hit $2000 by late 2011.  The same price management effort is being implemented now and the elitists will do their best to keep gold from broadcasting a loud warning signal to the markets that something is wrong.

Unfortunately, if the masses were allowed to see gold’s “canary” die in the “coal mine” behind the elitists’ “curtain,” it would enable the ones paying attention to get their money out of banks and other monetary custodians before their money is vaporized by whatever financial hurricane is brewing.

Today gold was smashed right when the Comex floor opened.  This is standard operating procedure:

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In the first 30 minutes of Comex floor trading, 3.2 million ounces of paper gold “bombs” were dropped on the Comex. Currently the Comex is showing that 2.5 million ozs of gold have been made available in Comex custodial vaults for delivery. Naked short-selling of futures contracts this extreme only occurs in the gold and silver markets. If selling of this magnitude relative the amount of underlying available for delivery occurred in any other commodity, the CFTC would immediately investigate. Not so in gold because the CFTC is part of the elitist team that is charged with price management of gold.

The common “muscle” reaction to a day when gold, silver and the mining stocks are down as much they are now is to sell and run.  But this is the wrong reaction.  If you want to do something to try and protect what’s your’s, days like today are when money should be removed from banks – especially Deutsche Bank – and moved into the precious metals sector.  This may not be the bottom – but it’s close enough for Government work.  If you liked mining stocks in early August when the HUI index hit 284 , you should love them now with the HUI at its 200 dma.   The HUI has nearly completed a 200 day moving average correction.  It might go lower from here but you’ll never pick the bottom.

I use Goldmoney (Bitgold) to accumulate gold on days like today – because I can buy fractionals of an ounce at price that’s close to spot.  I moved a fair amount of cash from my checking account into my Goldmoney account today:  GOLDMONEY/Bitgold.