Archive - Apr 20, 2011 - Story

Remember Japan? From Kyodo: TEPCO Can Not Rule Out Meltdown At Fukushima Reactor. Surely this is bullish for lead, over and above the massive surge in demand for the metal from central banks.

And now for the latest news in the silver meltup: SLV just moved to Hard To Borrow status at Goldman Sachs. This pertains to institutionals who are Goldman Prime Broker clients. Soon coming to every prime broker near you. Comex margin hike imminent now that it is impossible to short the largest silver ETF in the world.

And now for a little variety from the now daily Chinese fraud exposes. Copperfield Research, in taking a break from the spate of unmasking of locally listed reverse merger frauds which how now locked up the Nasdaq halt list, has decided to focus on some potential home grown fraud, exposing what it believes is some local fraud in the form of Nasdaq-listed OCZ Technology Group. From the just released report: "OCZ has parlayed investor and market excitement for solid state drives (SSDs) into an amazing story. From a low of $1.79 last summer, OCZ's stock has steadily climbed more than 350% on a feel good tale told by its CEO. But there is a much darker and sinister side that has been well hidden. It is our opinion that OCZ has misrepresented its SSD growth and has financial irregularities that are nearly impossible to reconcile. We believe that some form of a restatement may be required and that the auditors tick and tie review has some substantial inconsistencies. As such, we have sent our findings to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking for clarification on the multiple sets of numbers that we have uncovered. We believe OCZ's Board has the fiduciary responsibility to form a special committee to examine these discrepancies." The bottom line for those curious where this short-seller sees the stock: "If OCZ trades in-line with the comp group, a generous assumption given OCZ's limited asset value, differentiation, and minimal profitability, a reasonable price target would be between $2.58 and $4.98 per share."

And some more odd news out of Pimco, in which we learn that PIMCO which now has about $74 billion in excess cash, has decided to go ahead and take more investor cash without any direct investment ideas and launch an ETF. From Bloomberg: "Pacific Investment Management Co. plans to offer an exchange-traded fund managed by Bill Gross that will invest primarily in fixed-income securities. Pimco Total Return Exchange-Traded Fund will buy a combination of U.S. and non-U.S. public and corporate debt, the Newport Beach, California-based firm said in filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund may hold as much as 10 percent of its assets in high-yield securities." According to preliminary data Pimco will hold up to 65% in government and corporate bonds. The biggest question: how big this ETF will be is still unanswered. As was first disclosed previously here, however, with the bigger fund negative Gov't debt right now, we wonder if the new ETF will merely whether replicate the larger fund's strategy or serve as a buyer of holdings from the larger fund when there is no other buyer in the market. Lastly, the whole point of having an ETF when anyone who wishes can buy the closed end fund, is just a little suspicious.

The U.S. is just a third world kleptocracy on an Imperial scale. That is of course a road to ruin: let the Elite plunder at will, protected by the Imperial Central State, tax the productive class to fund the armed forces and free bread, and then buy off the lower class with bread and circuses. The only successful model of reconciliation and justice we have is the "truth commissions" in other post-oppression autocratic kleptocracies. In countries that were deeply divided and poisoned by institutionalized injustice and exploitation, the healing process requires a public, transparent "truth commission" in which the guilty are brought forth to confess their sins against the innocent and face the consequences of their actions. If a society cannot rouse itself to cleanse the fundamental injustice at the heart of its institutions, then it is effectively choosing self-destruction. So far, the U.S. is pursuing the Roman Imperial model with an institutional zeal unmatched since Rome's fall. Embedded institutional injustice has a price, a price which rises with every passing day of propaganda and prevarication. Some day the bill will come due and a terrible price paid in full. For those in power, the only concern is that it not be today or tomorrow.

From $44 to $45 in 13 hours. At this rate $46 in 6.5 hours. Thank you Chairsatan Benzebub.

Just a quick reminder that the world continues to burn: the yield on the Greek 2 Year bond has just climbed to 22%, an all time record. The actual price is 74.25%. And far more jarringly, the 10 Year is 59 cents on the euro. A 40% haircut is now effectively priced in by the market.

What the so-called silver ‘experts’ neglect to account for in their models and projections is that the fiat money experiment has failed. And in this context, we believe the Market has assigned world reserve currency status to gold - not USD, not EUR, and not JPY. In our opinion, gold’s continued appreciation vis-à-vis every currency is assured because the great flight from fiat has only just begun. Like gold, silver also has a long monetary history, and as such, investors are now also buying silver as protection from the ravages of fiat currency debasement. Yet, when compared to gold, it is silver that offers the most attractive value proposition by virtue of the gross mispricing of its scarcity, which, we might add, has existed for many years. Thus, in our opinion, as this new bimetallic standard takes root, silver investors will continue to be justly rewarded with marked outperformance. We truly believe that this is the investment opportunity of a lifetime, and increasingly so, others are taking heed. What is clear to us is that with equal investment dollars now flowing into silver and gold, the current 35-to-one ratio is unsustainable and has only one direction to go: lower.

As silver is about to break $45 any second, we thought we'd take a minute to show the change in the S&P in real terms, i.e. adjusted for the plunge in the dollar. When one compares the YTD change in the S&P compared to the YTD change in DXY, one gets... the following. To all those who hold stocks: congratulations - you have only lost 0.18% in purchasing power year to date. To everyone else: we can only hope Goldman's next downgrade of crude is more effective. That, or take a bicycle to work.

Larry Yun, whose NAR has now lost all credibility, and which data has been confirmed to be flawed and conflicted, released March existing home sales, which allegedly came at an annualized rate of 5.1 million compared to expectations of 5 million. From the release: "Existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 3.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.10 million in March from an upwardly revised 4.92 million in February, but are 6.3 percent below the 5.44 million pace in March 2010. Sales were at elevated levels from March through June of 2010 in response to the home buyer tax credit." And while we have nothing but ridicule for Yun's thought, for some reason the market still seems to care. This is what he said: “Existing-home sales have risen in six of the past eight months, so we’re clearly on a recovery path,” he said. “With rising jobs and excellent affordability conditions, we project moderate improvements into 2012, but not every month will show a gain – primarily because some buyers are finding it too difficult to obtain a mortgage. For those fortunate enough to qualify for financing, monthly mortgage payments as a percent of income have been at record lows." Yes, all is great, even as housing is now triple dipping.

The various Yen funding crosses have suddenly seen a bit of a hiccup (but fear not: it only means far greater USD shorting instead) following a rumor that Greece may default as early as this weekend. While we think there is absolutely no possibility of that happening, a far more interesting piece of news comes from Finland, where the recent electoral upstart Soini from the True Finns party has said that the May EcoFin meeting would discuss an "entirely different" solution to the debt crisis, than the previous one. Specifically, he was quoted by Reuters as saying the best solution would be one of bank recapitalization whereby banks, and not taxpayers, bear liability. Is Europe about to pull the plug on taxpayer funded bailout for good? And if so, does the European financial system have enough a buffer to absorb what will certainly be hundreds of billions in capital shortfall. Looks like May is shaping up to be another rescue Europe month... just like last year.

Something oddly poetic about the following chart...

The most recent addition to Goldman's economic team Zach Pandl is fitting in nicely: overnight he was told to come up with a note discussing the range of Q2 GDP numbers, following the firm's Friday night cut of Q1 GDP by over 50% to 1.75%, which he does admirably: on one end he proceeds to show that based on traditional methods of regression analysis, Q2 GDP is about to surprise far to the downside again, coming at 2.2%. However, here is where some creative liberty with reality comes into play: As Pandl says: "it turns out that real GDP growth in any given quarter is not a particularly good predictor of GDP growth in the next quarter, once other information is taken into account." And in order to "take other information into account" Goldman reverts to its recently inaugurated GDP substitute, the CAI (also defined by Zero Hedge as the Completely Arbitrary Index, discussed previously here). As a reminder this is the artificial economic growth indicator that literally plugs selected goalseeked numbers that allow Goldman to print out whatever "growth" number it desires. Such is the case here as well. Because in the case when one uses the CAI and does some autoregression mumbo jumbo, one ends with a 4.8% implied Q2 GDP growth. So basically: 2.2% to 4.8% in Q2 GDP. Way to earn your money Goldman. Here is our estimate: Q2 GDP will come below the firm's worst case (i.e., based on reality) scenario.

One of the key news from the past week was that Chinese FX reserves passed a record $3 trillion for the first time, a surge of $200 billion in the first quarter alone. And with the bulk of that in dollar, it is not surprising that the recently collapse in the dollar has forced more posturing out of both the PBoC and SAFE (the State Administration of Foreign Exchange). In comments published Tuesday, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China said that China's huge stockpile of foreign exchange
reserves have become excessive and the government
must diversify investments using the reserves. "Foreign exchange reserves have exceeded our
country's rational demand, and too much accumulation has caused
excessive liquidity in our markets, adding to the pressure of the
central bank's sterilization." That this is a not so subtle hint aimed at the dollar was confirmed earlier today by SAFE which said that the US government should take responsible measures
to protect the interests of investor. "U.S. Treasuries reflect the credit of the US government and are an important investment product for domestic and international institutional investors," the ministry said in a statement carried today on SAFE's website. "We hope the U.S. government takes responsible measures to protect investor interests." Alas, with the US administration solely focused on making confetti out of the US currency, we hope that China is not holding its breath too long. On the other hand, should the DXY take out its 2009 lows, all bets will surely be off and only another market collapse will be able to generate a potential flight to safety in the dollar. In the meantime, both gold and silver continue to benefit, and the only thing that appears to be able to drag down precious metals at this point is a wholesale margin call invoking cross asset liquidation.