Archive - Apr 4, 2011 - Story

• Goldman lowers Q1 GDP, sees rest of year outlook as "messy: (Zero Hedge)
• GOP Aim: Cut $4 Trillion (WSJ)
• Trichet Seen Burying Ailing Nations With Interest-Rate Rise (BusinessWeek)
• ECB criticised over expected rate rise (FT)
• Important for China arbs: BOC HK Cuts Yuan Deposit Interest Rate (Bloomberg)
• In Tripoli, Growing Murmurs Of Dissent (WSJ)
• Inflation Surge May Cause Hike in Won, Rates (Korea JoongAng)
• Us Foreign Policy "Shocker": U.S. Shifts to Seek Removal of Yemen’s Leader, an Ally (NYT)
• Next Problem for Oil: Nigerian Elections (WSJ)
• Geithner Says Strict Policy on Currency Hurts China (NYT)
• China closes half the nation's dairies (Telegraph)
• Ireland to Push for Better Bailout Terms (WSJ)

At this point it is certain: the Fed is determined to baffle them with bullshit.

Back On March 14th, Zero Hedge first disclosed data originating from the SPEEDI (System for Prediction of Environment Emergency Dose Information) database, which showed that while radiation in the Ibaraki prefecture were about 30 times above normal, the core affected regions were "Under Survey." In subsequent posts we compared the "Under Survey" category to one step below what the BLS does on a daily basis - i.e., make up stuff. But at least in Japan, they did not even make data up: they just refused to release it. Well, we now have official confirmation from NHK that once again our well-grounded skepticism (and cynicism) was as usual absolutely spot on: "It has been learned that the Japanese government withheld the release of
computer projections indicating high levels of radioactivity in areas
more than 30 kilometers from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant. The estimates were made on March 16th following explosions at the plant by an institute commissioned by the government using a computer system called SPEEDI. The system made its projections on the assumption that radioactive substances had been released for 24 hours from midnight on March 14th, based on the available data." Of course, had the disastrous SPEEDI data been reveled in time, not even the hundreds of billions (or trillions in Yen) of emergency money pumped by the BOJ, would have been able to prevent a complete market disaster. In other words: Nikkei 1; Human Life 0. In the meantime we wonder what superpowers the X-Man from the affected regions will soon develop.

Read about all the latest developments in the fiasco that keeps getting worse, more improvised, and more out of control by the day.

Silver for immediate delivery has gained another 1.7% to $38.50 an ounce, the highest level since February 1980, the year silver reached a record of $50.35/oz. An ounce of gold bought as little as 37.32 ounces of silver in London today, the lowest level since September 1983. Silver has come out of backwardation and returned to contango with longer dated future prices again higher than nearer month contracts and spot for delivery (see table below). This suggests that default on the COMEX, as warned of by some analysts, is not imminent and the tightness seen in the physical silver market may have abated somewhat. However, the Dec12 contract trading at only cents over spot for delivery (less than 10 cents) suggests that tightness remains. Given the degree of tightness in the physical silver market, silver may return to backwardation sooner rather than later. The latest COT report shows speculative long positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 37,139 contracts (see news and chart below). This is a level of net longs by hedge fund managers and other large speculators that was seen as long ago as 2002.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 04/04/11