Archive - May 25, 2011 - Story

Only important data point today is the durable goods number which, will be another material drop, and merely the latest confirmation that US economic growth is coming to a complete halt.

Wonder why Europe is pressing so hard for Greece (and soon the other PIIGS) to collateralize its pre-petition loans on a Debtor in Possession basis? Here is your answer: "Yesterday’s unanimous agreement by the European Parliament’s Committee
on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) to allow central counterparties
to accept gold as collateral, under the European Market Infrastructure
Regulation (EMIR), is further recognition of gold’s growing relevance as
a high quality liquid asset. This vote reinforces market demand for a greater choice of assets that can be used as collateral to meet margin liabilities." Luckily for Greece, it has 111.5 tons of gold in storage (somewhere at the New York Fed most likely). Looking down the road, Portugal has 382.5 tons, Spain 281.6, and Italy leads the pack with 2,451.8 tons.

Europe’s debt crisis has seen gold prices climb to new record highs in euros and British pounds at EUR 1,087.80/oz and GBP 944.93/oz respectively. Contagion concerns are mounting due to the failure of the ECB, the IMF and respective governments to tackle the sovereign debt crisis.
The scale of the debt crisis effecting Greece, Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Spain is leading to growing concerns of a knock on deleterious impact on European banks and the global banking system. Gold should also be supported today by the OECD’s warning regarding the U.S. and Japan’s very poor fiscal situations and their lack of credible plans to tackle high and spiraling budget deficits. Silver’s fundamentals remain even stronger than gold’s and the recent paper driven sell off due to a series of margin calls and heavy selling on the COMEX appears to be over.

Nobody could have seen this coming: Production in the US motor vehicle sector has fallen by nearly 10% since the beginning of the quarter, reflecting the impact of supply chain disruptions in Japan following the natural disasters there. The setback in vehicle output is likely to shave approximately 4 points off the growth rate of industrial production in Q2. We also think it will take a bit more than 1/2 point off real GDP growth for the quarter, and are lowering our Q2 growth forecast to 3.0%

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