Archive - May 28, 2010

The shadow bailout of the weak(est) Spanish banks continues under the guise of a forced national M&A program, as banks with some toxic asset capacity "merge" with the worse ones. Today's first "cold fusion" casualty is savings Caixa Girona which was merged by Barcelona's massive (in size if not solvency) La Caixa. With the recent change in requirements for loan loss provisioning by the Spanish Central Banks, which will make balance sheets far weaker, we will be bringing you many more such merger news going forward.

Full report

"The World Gold Council believes that with ongoing uncertainties surrounding the US dollar and the Euro, the search for alternative international asset choices within the central bank sector should clearly involve consideration of gold.Q1 net sales of 15 tonnes were very modest in comparison with historical averages. The IMF was the main contributor, with sales of 24.1 tonnes during the course of the quarter falling well within the limits of the Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA). The Fund remains committed to its aim of ensuring that its sales are not disruptive to the gold market. Sales among other CBGA signatories were nonexistent, while outside of the agreement, net purchases were concentrated in Russia, where the central bank continued its programme of steady accumulation." - World Gold Council

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 28/05/10

Operation SOMBRERO ??!!

Since college students are already likely to end up living back at home with their parents after they graduate as the job horizon will appear no better in four years than it is today, why not spend that time immersed in self-education of how the financial and monetary systems really work? In the process, students will save their parents hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition and save themselves the ignoble fate of being a sheep led to the slaughter by banking shills like Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Sachs.

So what will work?

They're already talking about the next approach ....