Archive - Dec 9, 2010

Brilliant plan, Brilliant!

Four vehicles reported net outflows. The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) said holdings on behalf of investors slipped 2.43 tonnes or 0.19 pct. Three by ETF Securities marketed gold ETF’s/ETC’s also reported outflows, namely the ETFS Metal Securities Physical Gold (PHAU) trust (-0.65 tonnes), the Gold Bullion Securities ETC (GBS) (-0.04 tonnes) and the ETFS Metal Securities Physical Gold Australia trust (-0.01 tonnes). Total holdings - thereby excluding the infrequently updated ZKB Physical Gold trust and Credit Suisse’s ETF II on gold - stood at 1,911.88 tonnes.

As we expected, last week's jobless claims number of 436k was upwardly revised pretty much as expected. The consensus for this week was 425k, and because a statistically meaningless 4k people less were fired the market spikes up. Of course, next week, the revision will take the number above 425k, meaning it was actually a miss, but who cares: computers continue to read just headlines and see what they like. Continuing claims came 4086k on expectations of 4237k, as the prior was also revised upward. Just under 400k people dropped off EUC and Extended Claims in the week ended Nov 20 as the 99-week cliff issue becomes ever more pronounced: these are the people who have anniversaried 2 years of claims and roll off with no further welfare state recourse. And most importantly, the Seasonally unadjusted number exploded by a near record 169k, and the NSA unemployment rate jumped from 2.9% to 3.3% in one week! In more important news, the BLS data subversion index came in as expected: 87% of initial claims announcements have been revised upward, and a whopping 96% of continuing claims. The only question we have is whether the same computers that trade the market are the same that are used to fudge the data, or is Intel profiting from two sets of 80286 purchases by the fudge monkeys at the BLS.

ToP SeCReT images for the eyes of Zero Hedge readers only...

• Ireland downgraded to BBB+ by Fitch, outlook stable, market yawns
• Asian stocks, Aussie gain on jobs growth, better-than-forecast Japan GDP.
• Bank of Korea leaves benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2.5%.
• EU fines Taiwanese, SKorean LCD panel makers €649M on price fixing charges.
• India's inflation holds above 'tolerance level,' Indian Central Bank Chief says.
• Japan’s Q3 GDP grew at an annualized 4.5% - faster than the 3.9% reported last month.
• Greek loan repayment extension possible in early 2011.
• More than half of Americans want Fed reined In or abolished: Bloomberg survey.

• Senate Leaders Set to Begin Debate on Tax Cuts (WaPo)
• Democrats Are Seeking Changes to Tax Deal, Reid Says (Bloomberg)
• Merkel Seeks Calm After Juncker E-bond Blast (FT)
• The rise of behavioural thinking in economics and finance (fund strategy)
• Hilsenrath speaks: Fed Unlikely to Alter Monetary Policy (WSJ)
• How west can reverse a decade of decline (FT)
• Steve Forbes: Why Ben Is Addicted To Failure (Forbes)
• Jon Weil: Operation Broken Trust may be a fitting name. Unfortunately it’s for all the wrong reasons. The public already knows not to trust the government (Bloomberg)
• Are We Subsidizing Unemployment? (IBD)

Recent news this week again proves that bankers are among the largest charlatans in the universe. First Jim Rickards reported that a Swiss bank refused to deliver roughly $40 million of gold bullion to a wealthy client for 30 days. Then James Turk reported that another Swiss bank still has not delivered $550,000 of silver to one of its clients demanding physical delivery for two months now and has repeatedly tried to convince the client to accept the cash value of the silver instead.

Here are the events out of US, Europe and Asia that are driving the markets this morning.

Just claims, wholesale inventories, and the Fed’s balance sheet today...

Its a new day and age where high barrier to entry business models in media simply don't work. The Magic of the Internet eliminates said barriers. It would behoove those in these shops to come to this realization and truly embrace the magic of distributed computing in lieu of trying to force the genie back into the bottle, replete with all of its accompanying magic.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX – 09/12/10

Retail traders are notoriously wrong at picking market direction/tops and bottoms. Most retail traders very naturally seem to adopt a counter-trend stance and this offers very accurate signals for individuals looking to trade against this group. This daily report is designed to help traders focus their efforts on higher probability pairs.

Despite rumors that various splinter forces within the Republican party are attempting to block Ron Paul's fateful chairmanship of the Monetary Policy Subcommittee, we now have confirmation that the only sane politician left will now be Ben Bernanke's direct nemesis during any and all future Congressional spectacles starring the printing unchallenged one. And with US debt creeping ever closer to the debt ceiling, coupled with the dollar for dollar monetization of the US deficit, such spectacles will soon be plenty.