Author : Bill Holter
Published: May 28th, 2013
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
Friday, December 13, 2013
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Friday, September 6, 2013
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
ObamaCare Destroying Jobs In America? You Bet!
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
MUST READ!!!
Author : Bill Holter
Published: August 1st, 2013
"Liquidity" is what makes the world go 'round. "Liquidity" if you recall was (still is) the primary tool that was applied to "fix" the world after the 2008 Lehman event. Yes, it was absolutely necessary to flood the system, otherwise we would have seen a default cascade. And no, "liquidity" did not fix anything. It only kept the system going and prolonged the end game.
Well, we are again seeing a big problem right now behind the scenes when it comes to liquidity. Not with stocks, not with bonds...but with commodities. I spoke today with the owner of a large supplier to Miles Franklin and he told me that "liquidity" is drying up for the ability to hedge precious metals. I will try to explain this the best that I can, it is somewhat above my pay grade as I am a horseman with street smarts, not a computer geek esoteric rocket scientist.
When you call a coin dealer to purchase (or sell) in any sizeable quantity, the dealer will then call their supplier. The supplier will then take the order and call their dealer, in the meantime there will be 2-4 days before the metal arrives so this dealer must protect themselves against market movement. They will call an "aggregator" to lay off the risk. An aggregator deals in OTC contracts and will write a contract down to the exact ounce. They take the opposite side of the trade in other words, for a small premium which of course is built into the original price of the trade and is ultimately paid for by the end client.
The above is super simplified but please understand that this is how the world turns in ALL markets. Risk must be, and is hedged through these aggregators with ECP's (eligible contract participants). We heard on the 20th that Morgan Stanley was exiting this market, then on the 25th it was JP Morgan's turn and now this week it is others. These firms are "ECP's" who ultimately take on the risk. I should rephrase that…they WERE the ones who took on the risk as they are now exiting the business.
So I asked, "how can you still do business without hedging?" to which I found out that so far this week almost ALL of the hedging has been done through Europe, particularly for Silver. There is liquidity...just not any coming from the US. He also told me that between 2:00PM and 5:00PM this week he was not able to do any Silver hedging at all because there was nowhere to hedge as Europe is sleeping.
Oversimplified? Yes of course it is and I hope someone else (smarter than me) picks up the ball and runs with it because this is really big news. As I have always said, the world runs on "credit" and without it everything stops. Now this is not credit so to speak, this situation is one of "swaps" (derivatives) used as insurance to hedge risk. Without it, flow slows down, risk increases along the supply chain and the risk of supply disruption increases. In layman's terms, this would be like the trucking industry having to call Europe to get cargo insurance because no US based companies will write the coverage. Will a trucker haul an uninsured load? Maybe…maybe not, but flow slows down and all that is associated with it.
So what does it mean? First off, something has changed or is changing in the precious metals (and base metals) arena for sure. We already knew that inventories are being drawn down and the lower prices have created unprecedented demand. We also have evidence that the Bank of England has bled out 1,300 tons of Gold over 4 months time which equates to more than half of the entire world's production. …And now this?
My simple take? They don't want to take the other side of the trade, period. The Goldman's and Morgan's of the world know how to make money, lots and lots of it and rarely pass up an opportunity to make more. They are plugged in and are "in the know" yet now they don't want to write OTC derivatives insuring against volatility (upward) in Gold and Silver. This should tell you something, no, this should SCREAM something at you! They do what they do to make money, not lose it and they by their actions are telling you what they think (probably know).
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Friday, July 26, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Monday, July 15, 2013
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Thursday, July 11, 2013
If US Gov. Can't Allow Failure, Then We Are Indeed Close to Collapse
Seth Klarman ringing the bell of sanity in an insane world
From ZEROHEDGE
From ZEROHEDGE
Klarman Clarity: "If The Government [Still] Can't Allow Failure Then We Are Indeed Close To Collapse"
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
Friday, July 5, 2013
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Friday, June 7, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
I Don't Get It
From Bill Holder at the Miles/Franklin Blog
A couple of years back I wrote a piece similar to what I'm thinking right now. I couldn't understand "how people couldn't see what was happening". Now, it is so obvious where we are headed yet it seems that the "disconnect" between those who can "see" and those who can't (or refuse to) has grown. On the one hand you have the people who warned back in 2006-08 of the housing bubble, debt and banking meltdowns and financial trainwreck. On the other hand you have the "blue skies" crowd. Now, just like the back then...someone is going to be wrong, VERY wrong.
Just over the last week, the BIS has issued 3 separate statements of warning. (They were in hindsight the only "official" agency to warn ahead of time back in 2007 of the coming crisis). They recently made a call for cracking down on the collateral chain in the shadow banking system and then over the weekend they said that "stimulus must stop" because it is not and has not worked. Imagine that? The central bank of central banks has said that the "savior" for all, ..."QE", printing, monetizing or whatever else you'd like to call it...doesn't work. They even went so far as to say that "if a medicine doesn't work it doesn't necessarily mean that the dose wasn't strong enough". Maybe the wrong medicine?
But wait, it gets even better. The BIS came out with one more statement over the weekend http://www.reuters.com/
So the BIS has now within 1 week's time warned about the daisy chain called "collateral, warned that QE (monetizing debt) doesn't work and should be halted, and have now laid out a plan to "fix" insolvent U.S. banks. Like I asked last week..."Why now?". Of course, while this has been happening we have seen the parade of jokers on CNBC spouting bullish garbage with Cramer in the background screaming BUY BUY BUY! As I said above, someone is going to wrong, seriously wrong. There is one side saying that we have blue skies 'til the year 2525 and the other side saying it's over and the entire system is going to collapse. So which is it?
Well, these 2 sides are basically the same people and institutions that chose sides back in 2007. The "Blue Skyers" back then are the same group (Keynesians and Monetarists) that are pointing to the stock market (and current correction in Gold) and saying "look, all is well". The Austrians on the other hand are saying that it is game over and we don't (won't) get another chance like back in 2008-09 to try to reflate because Treasury balance sheets have already been wasted.
As for me? I just don't get it. I don't see how anyone can even glance (unless it's only at incorrect headlines) at the current situation and not see what is coming. I have received e-mails about how Gold is a "risky asset" (it is not, it is simply money at it most basic, raw and core form) and owning it is for barbarians. I have received e-mails telling me what and idiot alarmist I am because I believe the LBMA and COMEX will default on their Gold and Silver contracts. "This" can never happen they say (at least in our lifetimes). "This" I personally say HAS to happen because there are 100 ounces "sold" for every 1 real ounce in existence. AND the last "correction" has served to at least double global demand which will only bring the final day of reckoning closer on the calendar.
I don't get a lot of things, how was the price of lumber crashing if real estate is so "hot"? How are the banks absolutely loaded with foreclosed RE and yet reporting higher earnings due to "lower" loan loss provisions. How is unemployment reported under 8% if it is over 17% as measured in the old days? How is inflation reported under 2% when everything you look at is at higher by 10% over the last year? How can interest rates be where they are if inflation is already far higher, are people actually locking in guaranteed losses? And what about the various short term rates that are actually negative where investors PAY the borrower to "safeguard" their monies? What's up with this? Of course, I wouldn't be a true "lunatic" if I didn't ask the question, how is it that all of the "selling" in huge and panic fashion in Gold and Silver has caused shortages? Where did all of this "sold" metal go to? Like I said, I don't get it.
I do understand one thing for sure. We are coming to an absolutely EPIC and HISTORIC crossroads in the global financial and economic highway. The choices made and "sides" taken now will affect the rest of your lives no matter what age you are now. Your actions now will probably affect not only the next generation but also the one following. "Someone" is going to be wrong and will be wiped out financially. Myself? I am going with the ones who have been right in the past for the right reasons. Call me an idiot. Call me stupid. Heck, call me barbaric! I vote for common sense! Regards, Bill H.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Monday, May 20, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Friday, May 17, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Friday, May 3, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Friday, April 26, 2013
What Do You Do When ALL The Markets Are Rigged?
Rolling Stone
Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
By Matt Taibbi
April 25, 2013
Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.
You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that's trillion, with a "t") worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it "dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets."
That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world's largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world's largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps...
All of these stories collectively pointed to the same thing: These banks, which already possess enormous power just by virtue of their financial holdings in the United States, the top six banks, many of them the same names you see on the Libor and ISDAfix panels, own assets equivalent to 60 percent of the nation's GDP are beginning to realize the awesome possibilities for increased profit and political might that would come with colluding instead of competing. Moreover, it's increasingly clear that both the criminal justice system and the civil courts may be impotent to stop them, even when they do get caught working together to game the system.
If true, that would leave us living in an era of undisguised, real-world conspiracy, in which the prices of currencies, commodities like gold and silver, even interest rates and the value of money itself, can be and may already have been dictated from above. And those who are doing it can get away with it. Forget the Illuminati this is the real thing, and it's no secret. You can stare right at it, anytime you want.
Read the entire story here.
Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
By Matt Taibbi
April 25, 2013
Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.
You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that's trillion, with a "t") worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it "dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets."
That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world's largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world's largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps...
All of these stories collectively pointed to the same thing: These banks, which already possess enormous power just by virtue of their financial holdings in the United States, the top six banks, many of them the same names you see on the Libor and ISDAfix panels, own assets equivalent to 60 percent of the nation's GDP are beginning to realize the awesome possibilities for increased profit and political might that would come with colluding instead of competing. Moreover, it's increasingly clear that both the criminal justice system and the civil courts may be impotent to stop them, even when they do get caught working together to game the system.
If true, that would leave us living in an era of undisguised, real-world conspiracy, in which the prices of currencies, commodities like gold and silver, even interest rates and the value of money itself, can be and may already have been dictated from above. And those who are doing it can get away with it. Forget the Illuminati this is the real thing, and it's no secret. You can stare right at it, anytime you want.
Read the entire story here.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Irish Banks Go Cyprus On Pensioners....Are You Next?
From the BoomBustBlog.com
As Forewarned, The Irish Savers Have Just Been "Cyprus'd"
And There Is MUCH MORE "Cyprusing" To Come!
Monday, April 22, 2013
Reggie Middleton writes.......
This is likely to be the biggest financial story of the month, a story that's bigger than
Cyprus, and a story that you're not going to see in American mainstream media - not by a
long shot. Let's take this from the top, for BoomBustBloggers were warned weeks in advance. On Wednesday, 27 march 2013 I published EU Bank Depositors: Your Mattress Is Starting To Look Awfully Attractive - Bank Risk, Reward & Compensation wherein I explained that the situation of extreme loss faced by Cyprus bank depositors, savers and bondholders will not be a unique story - as excerpted:
The deposit accounts that you were getting just a few hundred basis points for have developed:
- Liquidity risks: The capital controls that weren't supposed to happen (see No Capital Controls In The EMU? Liar Liar Pants On Fire), happened! See Cyprus Banks Set To Reopen, To Serve As Glorified ATMs With A €300 Cash Withdrawal Limit
- Credit risks: Your so-called safe investments will suffer up to a 40% haircut! Mainstream Media Says Cyprus Salvaged By EU Deal, I Say Cyprus Is Sacrificed By Said Deal - Thrown Into Depression
- and Market risks: Demand depositors have forcibly purchased highly speculative synthetic call options with their haircuts that are unlikely to compensate anyone for anything!
- The little app below calculates what return you should expect to receive to take on the risk of a potential 40% haircut. The second tab offers what recent Cyprus bank rates were. Do you see a disparity???
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)