Archive - Sep 10, 2013

For the second day in a row, better than expected Chinese "data" set sentiment across the board when following an improvement in its trade data (even as crude oil imports dropped to an 11 month low), last night China reported a better than expected August Industrial Production print of 10.4%, compared to 9.7% for July, and higher than the 9.9% expected. This was driven by a pick up in Chinese M2, which rose from 14.5% to 14.7% Y/Y, as the PBOC has once again resuming what it does best, injecting liquidity into the system, even if said liquidity no longer makes its way into the proper channels, as new CNY loans missed the expected CNY730bn, rising to 711.3bn for August. Elsewhere, not all was good on the Industrial Production front, following a French miss of -0.6% on expectations of a rebound to +0.5%, as well as a miss in mfg production of -0.7%, down from -0.4% and below the expected 0.7%. This, in parallel with Moscovici once again saying the 2013 deficit will be "slightly higher than 3.7%" means that just like in 2012, and with German economic metrics continuing to contract, as the periphery stages a modest rebound it is the core that threatens Europe's stability once again. Finally, and since in Europe everything is ultimately funded by current account positive Germany either directly or via TARGET2, the recent Italian economic strength, which also means a bounce in imports, meant that Italian TARGET2 liabilities (through which Germany indirectly funds Italy's current account deficit) are once again back at a 4 month high. And so the cycle repeats.

There is a tradable approach to analyzing the fundamentals of supply and demand in the monetary metals markets. This article is a brief summary of the approach we take...