Archive - Jul 17, 2015

Don't ask. Period.

If you were a shareholder of a Greek bank, you wouldn’t lose sleep over your relationship with your regulator. In that context, the statement of the 12 July Euro Summit may have come as a shock—particularly the bit about the new program for Greece having to include "the establishment of a buffer of EUR 10 to 25bn for the banking sector in order to address potential bank recapitalisation needs and resolution costs." You could be forgiven for thinking—where did that come from?

With yesterday's appearance what seems like the first Iran oil tanker to set sail post-nuke-deal, Haaretz reports that Iran has been hiding millions of barrels of oil it never reported to the United States or in the world oil market, according to a company that has developed sophisticated maritime tracking technology. With the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves, Iran denies it’s storing oil at sea, despite reports that surfaced in The New York Times as early as 2012; but Ami Daniel, Windward founder and cochairman, shows "the Iranians are taking huge, 280-meter-long ships and filling them with oil, to sit at sea and wait. Because the sanctions allow for production of only three million barrels a day, they began storing the remainder... oil tankers have been sitting in the Gulf for anywhere between three and six months, just waiting for orders."

The latest ‘Global Precious Metal Roundtable’ was recorded Wednesday and featured Jordan Eliseo of ABC Bullion,  Bron Suchecki of the Perth Mint and Ron Stoeferle of Incrementum and Mark O’Byrne of GoldCore.

Searching for a refuge in today's uncertain markets? BlackRock has a solution...

The trick is to borrow as much as you can and leverage it to the hilt, and buy, buy, buy.

Economic Hitmen?

Our boots-on-the-ground coverage from the Greek 'frontline': what do normal Greek citizens think of all this mess?

"Working out the statistics for the Chinese economy is immensely challenging and it is hard to be absolutely accurate. No wonder the West has questions about the methodology. But different methods will not affect the authority of the NBS figures.... Despite the lowest GDP growth rate, the Chinese economy is not in its hardest times because the slowdown has greatly declined and the public has adapted to the current growth and even a lower rate. As faking a 7 percent figure takes more risk than releasing a lower but real one, China has no motives to forge the data... It is hence groundless to suspect the NBS faked its statistics."

All these bitches get to print money...

"Free" markets for all, but the real joke is that this comes from the Beijing Review

Total US Rig Count dropped 6 this week to 857 - the lows of the cycle - after 3 weeks of very modest rises. Oil rig count also declined, after 2 weeks of increases, by 7 to 638. The initial move in prices was higher (as for now we are in topsy-turvy land for crude) but that is starting to fade.

Remember when Greece was fixed... when The ECB extended its ELA to Greek banks and bridge loans were provided to repay The ECB? As we noted previously, it seems Greek banks are a sell at any price and today's continued crash in National Bank of Greece ADRs ahead of 'supposedly' a Greek bank re-opening on Monday, suggest "mark it zero" is coming soon to some knife-catchers' portfolios.