Keiser Report: Dumb Luck, Wash Trading & Gold Suppression

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the failure to understand English as saviour of the Japanese banking system. While price signals, the language of the market, are so manipulated as to be indecipherable by even those who speak the language. In the second half, Max talks to legendary investor, Jim Rogers, about gold, bonds and China.

Henry Smyth: Is this the Rothschild Moment for Gold?`

 by  rcwhalen.com

"Interest is the difference in the valuation of present goods and future goods; it is the discount in the valuation of future goods as against that of present goods." 

Ludwig von Mises

“Planning for Freedom”

We’ve all been watching the selloff in the global gold market.  Armies of chicken littles are in a frenzy due to suggestions that the Fed may be ending its quantitative easing, so I thought this is a good time to check in with my friend Henry Smyth of Granville Cooper Asset Management Ltd. (GCAM). Henry is a former Coutts & Co. banker and a very astute observer of the global financial markets.  We spoke last week in New York. -- Chris

RCW:  Henry, the gold market has been taking a beating in the past few months.  What do you see as the drivers of the gold market today? 

Marc Faber: "People With Financial Assets Are All Doomed"

by zerohedge.com

As Barron's notes in this recent interview, Marc Faber view the world with a skeptical eye, and never hesitates to speak his mind when things don't look quite right. In other words, he would be the first in a crowd to tell you the emperor has no clothes, and has done so early, often, and aptly in the case of numerous investment bubbles. With even the world's bankers now concerned at 'unsustainable bubbles', it is therefore unsurprising that in the discussion below, Faber explains, among other things, the fallacy of the Fed's help "the problem is the money doesn't flow into the system evenly, how with money-printing "the majority loses, and the minority wins," and how, thanks to the further misallocation of capital, "people with assets are all doomed, because prices are grossly inflated globally for stocks and bonds." Faber says he buys gold every month, adding that "I want to have some assets that aren't in the banking system. When the asset bubble bursts, financial assets will be particularly vulnerable."

The Recovery That Never Happened...

by Bill Bonner

Gold seemed to be stabilizing at the end of last week. Commodities remained weak. Steel has fallen 31% this year. Brent crude is off 17% since early February. And copper is down 15%.
Copper is the metal you need to make almost anything – houses, cars, electronics. When it goes down, it generally means the world economy is getting soft.
At the start of last week, the conventional analysis of the gold sell-off was that the central banks' efforts to revive global growth were working. The feds had the situation under control. So who needed gold?
By the end of the week, it appeared that gold – and commodities – had sold off for the opposite reason: because central banks' money printing wasn't working and the world was slipping further into a period of slow growth and barely contained depression. From Business Insider:

Recent U.S. economic data has been disappointing, especially in the realm of housing, which is what the US bull case is all about.
In Germany, dubbed the strong arm of Europe, economic sentiment just fell.

Where's the Growth?

And growth has begun to slow in China –

10 Scenes From The Economic Collapse That Is Sweeping Across The Planet

by Michael 

When is the economic collapse going to happen?  Just open up your eyes and take a look around the globe.  The next wave of the economic collapse may not have reached Wall Street yet, but it is already deeply affecting billions of lives all over the planet.  Much of Europe has already descended into a deep economic depression, very disturbing economic data is coming out of the second and third largest economies on the globe (China and Japan), and in most of the world economic inequality is growing even though 80 percent of the global population already lives on less than $10 a day.  Just because the Dow has been setting brand new all-time records lately does not mean that everything is okay.  Remember, a bubble is always the biggest right before it bursts.  The next major wave of the economic collapse is already sweeping across Europe and Asia and it is going to devastate the United States as well.  I hope that you are ready.
The following are 10 scenes from the economic collapse that is sweeping across the planet... 

#1    27 Percent Unemployment/60 Percent Youth Unemployment In Greece
The economic depression in Europe just continues to get worse with each passing month.  According to the Daily Mail, the unemployment rate in Greece has nearly tripled since 2009...

The Golden Answer to Chinese Import Data

by Eric Sprott, Etienne Bordeleau & David Franklin

Manufacturing data in the last several months has suggested that economic growth around the world is slowing.¹   However, China’s export growth surprised the market this week and unexpectedly accelerated in April, even as shipments to the U.S. and Europe fell.²   This has created a conundrum for analysts and market watchers. How can China be growing while the countries that purchase its exports are slowing? The numbers don’t add up.

Digging deeper into these figures, several analysts have come to the conclusion that the numbers are faulty. Bank of America Corp. and Mizuho Securities Co. analysts have gone so far to say the figures have been inflated by fake reports. An “astounding” 92.9 percent jump in exports to Hong Kong, the most in 18 years, raises questions on data quality, researcher IHS Inc. said. They even call some of the data ‘absurd’, suggesting that exporters are ‘faking orders’ to obtain export-tax rebates. These observations challenge the credibility of Chinese economic data once again.

China produces 90 tons, consumes 320 tons in Q1-2013

The Association added that country's gold production gained 11% in the same period to 89.91 tonnes.

BEIJING (BullionStreet): World's largest gold producer and second largest consumer China's total gold usage reached 320.54 metric tonnes in the first quarter, China Gold Association said.
According to CGA, purchases of gold bars surged 49% to 120.39 tonnes, while jewelry gained 16% to 178.59 tonnes.
Gold consumption in China soared 26% in the first three months of 2013 from a year ago amid strong bullion sales and rising jewelry demand.
The Association added that country's gold production gained 11% in the same period to 89.91 tonnes.
Analysts said Chinese gold imports are likely to swell further after rising strongly for a second straight month in March, as investors seek safety from economic uncertainty and after prices plunged to a two-year low last month.
Meanwhile, China's net gold inflows from Hong Kong rose to 223.519 tonnes in March from 97.106 tonnes in February.
China produced 403 tonnes of gold in 2012, but consumption was more than double at 832.2 tonnes.
Demand for gold from India and China is a major factor in global prices, with the World Gold Council saying the two countries account for more than a third of global appetite.

Thanks, World Reserve Currency, But No Thanks: Australia And China To Enable Direct Currency Convertibility

by Tyler Durden 

 

A month ago we pointed out that as a result of Australia's unprecedented reliance on China as a target export market, accounting for nearly 30% of all Australian exports (with the flipside being just as true, as Australia now is the fifth-biggest source of Chinese imports), the two countries may as well be joined at the hip.



Over the weekend, Australia appears to have come to the same conclusion, with the Australian reporting that the land down under is set to say goodbye to the world's "reserve currency" in its trade dealings with the world's biggest marginal economic power, China, and will enable the direct convertibility of the Australian dollar into Chinese yuan, without US Dollar intermediation, in the process "slashing costs for thousands of business" and also confirming speculation that China is fully intent on, little by little, chipping away at the dollar's reserve currency status until one day it no longer is.

Short Covering Squeeze In Precious Metals and Miners?

by Jeb Handwerger - Gold Stock Trades

A week ago I wrote about a potential rebound after capitulation and panic selling in precious metals and the miners. It now appears Goldman Sachs (GS) is covering its short on gold as it rebounds above $1400.
Meanwhile, many banks have helped confuse and misdirect the investment community out of gold (GLD) and silver (SLV). This was a classic shakeout and bear trap which may start a major short covering rally.
Be ready to see increased short covering combined with record physical demand. These are the two elements to spark a price spike and breakout higher in both gold and silver.
These markets are ready to start moving higher after basing for 2 years and having a major short attack by the big banks too big to fail and the media.

Right when gold and silver were about to gain some momentum after bouncing off key support for most of 2012, simultaneously Goldman Sachs came out with a bearish prognostication on precious metals, old Fed minutes are brought up and Cyprus says they will sell gold.
This resulted in a shakeout below $1535 and a massive bear trap for momentum traders who may have been stopped out. The markets will do whatever it must to confuse, misdirect and obfuscate the long term trend investor.

The Biggest Bubble in Human History?

by lewrockwell.com

Dow up 125 points yesterday, to a new all-time record.

Why? What's behind it? The economy is not so hot. Why the red-hot stock market?

China is back in the news. A new report from CBS's "60 Minutes" documents the extent of the ghost cities in China – miles and miles of empty highway, office towers, apartments and malls. Analysts are talking about the biggest real estate bubble in history!


Is China a bubble? We don't know.

Does it matter? Well... yes... maybe. If China melts down or blows up the demand for oil and other resources goes down. The Chinese have pumped vast sums of money into development projects. That money helped to keep people on the job... and also kept the ships full of stuff, going back and forth across the world's oceans.

‘BRICS Development Bank would shift the tectonic plates of geopolitics and geo-economics’

by rt.com
 

The BRICS Development Bank is the beginning of the end of the existing monetary management system, Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar told RT.

RT: There’s no doubt about it, these countries that form the BRICS, they haven’t got a lot in common have they? They’ve all got different styles of government indeed some of them are economic rivals. Are they really a group to be taken seriously?

Pepe Escobar: From now on yes, let’s say until this summit in Durban, there was a lot of political talk of course and the BRICS are basically an economic group in the making. Now it’s different, now they have clear sound, actual policies to be implemented.

China Preparing To Impose Bretton Woods II Gold Standard

by King world News

The flow of power and gold is going from West to East.  China may have accumulated a staggering 1,500 tons of gold last year alone.  China’s growth is now picking up steam as well.  What is really stunning is how much the yuan has increased in terms of international transactions.”

“The usage of the yuan in international transactions has been increasing at an unbelievable 170% per year.  That’s how fast the yuan has been increasing in terms of international transactions.  So goes the gold, so goes the power, and you can see it in the prominence the yuan is gaining.

The Chinese definitely have a plan here and that is to get control of gold....

“We are headed for another Bretton Woods.  It is unsustainable for currencies to continue to lose their purchasing power while median incomes, especially in the US, continue to go down in the West.

Gold & the Developed World in the Face of Massive Change in the Next Two Decades

by Julian D. W. Phillips

In the last five years, we have seen the start of the decline of the developed world and the real impact of the economic rise of China on that world. What lies ahead? James Wolfensohn, the ex-president of the World Bank gave a short lecture in which he forecasts what the world’s cash flows would be like in 2030:

·For the last century and far more, 80% of the cash flow of the world flowed to what we know as the developed world where 20% of the people lived. Twenty percent of the cash flow went to the underdeveloped world where 80% of the world’s population lived.

Russia Flips Petrodollar On Its Head By Exporting Crude, Buying Record Gold

by Tyler Durden
 
China has been a very active purchaser of gold for its reserves in the last few years, as we extensively covered here and here, but another nation has taken over the 'biggest buyer' role (for the same reasons as China).


Central banks around the world have printed money to escape the global financial crisis, and as Bloomberg reports, IMF data shows Russia added 570 metric tons in the past decade. Putin's fears that "the U.S. is endangering the global economy by abusing its dollar monopoly," are clearly being taken seriously as the world's largest oil producer turns black gold into hard assets. A lawmaker in Putin's party noted, "the more gold a country has, the more sovereignty it will have if there’s a cataclysm with the dollar, the euro, the pound or any other reserve currency."
Putin’s gold strategy fits in with his resource nationalism, statist agenda, as Bloomberg notes when Russia defaulted in 1998 it took 28 barrels of oil to buy one ounce of gold, was 11.5 barrels when Putin came to power and when in 2005 it had fallen to 6.5 barrels (less than half what it is now), he went all in, telling the central bank to buy.

Lessons From The 1930s Currency Wars

by Tyler Durden  

With Abe picking his new dovish playmate, and Draghi doing his best to jawbone the EUR down without actually saying anything, it is becoming very clear that no matter what level of bullshit histrionics is used by the politicians and bankers in public, the currency wars have begun to gather pace. Japan's more open aggressive policy intervention is the game-changer (and increasingly fascinating how they will talk around it at the upcoming G-20), as if a weaker JPY is an important pillar of the strategy to make this export-oriented economy more competitive again, it brings into the picture something that was missing from earlier interactions among central banks of the advanced economies – competitive depreciation. The last time the world saw a fully fledged currency war was in the early 1930s. Morgan Stanley's Joachim Fels looks at what it was like and what lessons can be drawn for the sequence of events - there are definite winners and losers and a clear first-mover advantage.

Via Morgan Stanley, Back to the 1930s? What Would a Currency War Look Like?
What did the currency war of the 1930s look like?
The backdrop for the currency war of the 1930s was the Gold Standard and the Great Depression (many economists blame the former for the latter). By fixing the value of the currency to the price of gold, the Gold Standard prevented a country from printing too much money. If it did, people would simply exchange it for gold (or for other currencies pegged to gold).