Archive - Oct 2010

Will a ton of anonymous corporate donations be enough to turn back an overwhelming demographic tide pushing the country to the left? We find out tomorrow.

All in favor, say "Aye"

Whoooosh... or just another DXY flash crash? If this was indeed a BoJ intervention, it is the worst money spent by a central bank in the history of Keynesianism, with a half life of less than 30 minutes. Elsewhere, gold is predictably nearing its all time highs.

At 8PM EST tonight the EUR/USD cross sold off 80pips in seconds only to rebound 60pips. Is this another mini flash crash causing ripples through the fx markets with HFT's going haywire? DXY spiked to 77.30. At what point are market regulators going to realize this gambling house is broken and there is no longer any creditability in capital markets?

As of today, one of the world's top oil exporters disclosed that it has exchanged about $15 billion of its FX reserves into gold. Earlier, Iran announced that the country has converted about 15% of its foreign exchange reserves into gold, and "will not need to import the metal for the next ten years." There is your mystery buyer to all that gold the IMF was selling in Q3... And since Ahmadinejad said that Iran's total FX reserves exceed $100 billion, the amount of gold in stock held by Iran is more than $15 billion. Which is equivalent more than 345 tonnes at a closing price of about $1350. Which also means that the WGC's official gold holdings are in dire need of an update, as Iran does not appear anywhere on the IMF's listing of official gold holders, and with over 345 tonnes, it would make Iran a top 15 holder of the yellow metal.

Overall, whether or not the FOMC outcome is seen as dovish enough relative to market expectations will dictate the immediate price action. But if global cyclical indicators show further signs of global decoupling, the backdrop of Fed easing plus the expected political buy-in for burden sharing in adjusting global imbalances means the underlying dominant macro theme that will persist after the dust settles is likely one of broad USD weakness still.

An assortment of images from the set of Young Blankenfein brought to you by the Banzai7 Film Institute...to the music of The Edgar Winter Group.

The country’s largest ever IPO is a blowout success. Tapping into the Chinese steel industry’s insatiable demand for metallurgical coal. Global investors starved for new, unexploited emerging market plays are pouring in. Mongolia is poised to become the fifth leading gold producer. What are the world’s biggest unexploited coal reserves and the richest untapped copper deposit worth in this superheated market? Are these the early stages of a bubble?

Come listen to PSP Investments' Annual Public Meeting 2010...

"Americans today are constantly watching their speedometers and trying to conform to every little rule yet there are so many rules that it's impossible for even the most honest and hard-working Americans not to be breaking some type of law on a daily basis. We are slaves in a criminal monetary system, where the Federal Reserve steals from the middle class through inflation and transfers this wealth to their banker friends on Wall Street. We are forced to accept pieces of paper of money while the US constitution defined only gold and silver as legal tender...We are now seeing countless signs on a daily basis that the US is headed for a complete societal collapse as we know it, forever."

The Commitment of Traders Report is created by the CFTC – The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and is published weekly every Friday. This body gathers and publishes the open futures positions on all publicly traded US futures contracts as well as the corresponding options. The data consists of 3 main categories.

Deal with it ...

Watch a couple hours of the political central planners, and you quickly conclude: (1) They are not geniuses, (2) They fundamentally do not understand the problem, and (3) We are DOOMED.

The rise in oil and grain prices over the last several months will be reaching Main Street by this winter. Gonzalo Lira argues that those price rises, coupled with the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing 2—scheduled for announcement in the coming two weeks—as well as the escalating Currency War with China will inevitably lead to runaway inflation: And he is prediciting it will start this March of 2011. —Gonzalo Lira

My take on the election and what it might mean.